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INTRODUCTION
In the lately published collection of Essays and Studies by Members of the English Association, Dr. Henry Bradley begins his essay on English place names by remarking that of the many thousand names on the Ordnance Map of England, some, like Newcastle and Blackwater, have an obvious meaning, and some, like Thames and Helvellyn, have not. ''It is natural,” he continues, " that curiosity with regard to these enigmatical names should be very widely felt, and the writers who have attempted to satisfy this curiosity are innumerable. Unfortunately nearly everything that has been written on the subject is worthless.” But he excepts from this condemnation Canon Isaac Taylor's Names and their Histories, a companion volume to the present book. A yet later and yet more cautious scholar may even class these books as fiction, but whether as fiction or not he must applaud it. In all ages place names have been favourite beasts of the chase. They are noble game, and they have given marvellous sport. They continue to do so, and generation after generation they survive to fascinate and to elude us. Take, for example, the name of Icknield Street. It has long been connected with the tribe of the Iceni who held the land round about its north-eastern terminus, and not many years ago Dr. Edwin Guest, in his Origines Celticce, translated the ancient Icenhilde Weg as " the highway (or military way) of the Iceni.” Archaeologists sprang up to show that the Iceni had given their name to several places upon its course. Ickleton was supposed to be Icenton ; Icklingham was Iceningham; Ickleford was Icenford. But then appeared Professor Haverfield and Dr. Bradley. Professor Haverfield showed that the Icknield Way could not be satisfactorily traced in Norfolk and Suffolk, the country of the Iceni, and that there were places just as probably named after that tribe in Middlesex, Sussex, and Yorkshire. These places, he affirms, owe their names to English personal names like Icel and Icca. Finally he says: " Nor could either the real name Icenhilde, or the supposed names Iceningham and the like, have grown out of the name Iceni. According to
Vlll
Words and Places
philological laws Iceni would have produced in English a form beginning with Itch- or Etch-.” Thus the arguments for connecting Icknield Street with the Iceni break down at every point. Dr. Bradley is equally decided. He goes off to a sugges- tion that would be picturesque if it were not timid. “ The natural supposition,” he says, “would be that the road was ^called from a woman named Icenhild.” But he confesses that no such person, historic or mythical, is known. The pursuit of Icenhild must begin. It may well be as long a chase as that after the Glory Ann who gave her name to a barn near the Icknield Way, on Hackpen Hill in Wiltshire.
Canon Taylor's book affords many consolations for the loss of the Iceni. See, for example, page 388, and read: “In a wild district of Derbyshire, between Macclesfield and Buxton, there is a village called Flash, surrounded by unenclosed land. The squatters on these commons, with their wild gipsy habits, travelled about the neighbourhood from fair to fair, using a slang dialect of their own. They were called the Flash men. and their dialect Flash talk ; and it is not difficult to see the stages by which the word Flash has reached its present signification.” The disappointments are fewer than the surprises in this book. If Beddgelert is showii to be the grave not of a hound, but of a saint, not Gelert but St. Celert, it is also shown that Liverpool is not the “ stagnant pool ” which Carlyle supposed it to be, but the pool of the waterfiag still called “ liver ” in the Isle of Wight and elsewhere. Civic pride has invented an heraldic fowl called a “ liver ” for the city arms of 'Liverpool, and this straightforward dash at the obvious is characteristic of unlearned derivers.
Mr. J. H. Round has a wholesome warning for the learned in his Notes on the Systematic Study of our English Place Names, He suggests that two generations hence antiquaries may be seeking the origin of a name which was in fact given by a speculative builder to honour his daughter; and Canon Taylor mentions “ Flos, Tiny, and other townships which a late Canadian governor named after his wife's lap-dogs.” Mr. Round also mentions the case of Stowe Maries, which is known to take its name from the family of Marice or Morice. It is now assuming the title of Stowe St. Mary, as the old East Cow and West Cow in the Isle of Wight have become slyly plural as East Cowes and West Cowes. Remembering the “ too ingenious antiquary ” and the fearless folk etymology which created the “ liver" for Liverpool, Mr. Round disputes
Introduction
IX
the philologist's claim to explain place names by his laws, because, like the laws of political economy, “ they ignore the human element." But they ignore only what is incalculable, and when they confess defeat they are bowing partly to darkest antiquity and partly to this vei*y human element. Mr. Round is more troublesome when he points out that two identical names side by side may undergo very different changes. The ‘‘ Biseleye " of Domesday becomes “ Bisley " in Gloucestershire, but Bushey " in Worcestershire ten miles away.
Imitating the old-style antiquarian, a writer in the Saturday Review derived Lambeth from the Mongolian word “ lama," meaning a chief priest, and the Semitic “ beth," a house — " the chief priest's house," or the archbishop's palace. But there were once upon a time men who grimly derived the " Crick " in '' Cricklade " from “ Greek," and attributed a university to the little place to dilute the wonder. William Stukeley, an eighteenth-century antiquarian, was a master of wonders in this kind. He explained “ Hackpen " as .serpent's head, by a combination of Hebrew and ancient British. “ Pen " was simple and meant head," while “ Hack " was the same as the '' Ochim " (Isaiah xiii. 21 ) which is [rendered doleful creatures " by our translators and as
serpents " by St. Jerome. Stukeley was as high-handed as his name — somehow — suggests. He found a “ King Barrow " above Wilton and straightway presumed that King Carvilios was buried there. Kings, he declared, often took their names from their people or their country: Cassibelan, for example, was King of the Cassii. Well then, Where should Carvilius live but at Carvilium, now Wilton, or where be buried but in the most conspicuous place near his palace ? " These were the men who made England great, fearing neither man nor God nor philology. There are some such still with us. As Stukeley heard the people at Beckhampton calling the Roman road the " French Way," so in the year of Admiral Rodjetsvensky’s victory in the North Sea I found a sturdy fellow sitting on Offa’s Dyke in Monmouthshire who told me that the mound was '' Dogger's Bank." We have need of men like that to explain “ Eggpie " Lane near the village of Sevenoaks Weald, or Tumbling Bay in a neighbouring parish far inland. It was no rustic but a clergyman who took in the Hihhert Journal that told me Ludcombe was named after King Lud of Ludgate Hill.
X
Words and Places
Better pure imagination than rash science in handling place names. It is with philology as with poetry — the imagination of a boy is healthy, and the mature imagination of a man is healthy. . . And fortunately science cannot destroy the imagination which kindles at the majestic “ Caernarvon,” the romantic Schiehallion,” and at the infinite variety of signifi- cance in names like Baydon, Tregonebris, Shepherds whim, Castell-y-Dail, Castell-y-Gwynt, Kingly Vale, Noar Hill, Thorpe Constantine, Stoke Charity, Palfrey Green, Happer- snapper Hanger, Jenny Pink's Copse, Amesbury, Bynoll, Ryme Intrinseca. Studies like Canon Taylor’s can only feed the roots of the imagination; they can colour or shape the flowers only by means beyond anticipation or estimate. Mr. Max Beerbohm has shown that our impression of a street is created chiefly by its character, not by its deliberately given name; that '‘Oxford” cannot exalt a street, nor "Man- chester ” depress a square. This is truer to life than the romantic’s flighty praise for the rococo mixture of suburban street and house names, which might lead future antiquaries to suppose Lyndhur;st a holy place, and to form a wild opinion of our standard of scenery from the prevalence of " Belle Vue.” Association is as strange as life: it absolutely distinguishes " guitar ” from " catarrh,” and helps to make the gulf between Amberley and Anerley. It was not until I remembered the rhyme of rapier and Napier that I knew how I had given the finest edge and point of chivalry to that soldier name. Some- times contrast alone is pow'erful, as when we take pleasure in Forest Hill, Gypsy Hill, Lambourn Street, or Seven Kings, in a world of chimneys and east wind. Sometimes mere book knowledge nourishes, as when we think of the Cassiterides and their people, in Strabo’s picture, coming down to the Phoenician traders on their shores, clothed down to their feet in black tunics, bearded like goats, and walking with staves. We shall do well to listen to Dr. Bradley when he says: " It would be just as reasonable to try to read Virgil by means of a French dictionary and with no grammar, as to try to trans- late ancient British names by means of a Welsh dictionary. To say this is to condemn nearly everything that has been written on the subject in popular books.” We shall do well to listen to Canon Taylor preferring the vividness of experience in " Blue Ridge,” " Pine Bluff,” " Otter Creek,” and " Louse Village,” to the indolence and arrogance of modern " Troy,” " Memphis,” " Rome,” and " Utica.” But we shall not do
Introduction
XI
well to make ourselves deaf to the ancient eloquence of names that can be as sweet to our ears as the laughter of Indian women long ago to the pioneer in Canada. Science goes deep, but the pure sense goes deeper. Let us seal ourselves of the tribe of Dr. Bradley, pursuing the not impossible Icenhild, though no such person, historic or mythical, is known.
EDWARD THOMAS.
The following is a list of Isaac Taylor’s works ; —
The Liturgy and Dissenters, i860; Words and Places; or, Etymological Illustrations of History, Ethnology, and Geography, 1864, 1865, 1873, with corrections and aditions by A. Smythe Palmer, 1909; The Family Pen: Memorials of the Taylor Family of Ongar, 1867; The Burden of the Poor, 1867; Etruscan Researches, 1874; The Etruscan Language, 1876; Greeks and Goths: a Study on the Runes, 1879; The Alphabet: an Account of the Origin and Development of Letters, 1883, 1899 (ThejHistory of the Alphabet); Domesday Survivals, 1888; Leaves from an Egyptian Note-book (from Daily News), 1888; The Ploughland and the Plough (Domesday Studies), 1888; The Origin of the Aryans (Contemporary Science Series), 1889; Names and their Histories: alphabetically arranged as a handbook of historical geography, etc., 1896; revised edition, 1898.
Canon Taylor edited Jane Taylor’s “ Contributions of Q. Q.” to a periodical work {The Youth* s Magazine), 1824, 13th edition, 1866; and W. A. Becker’s “ Charicles,” 1854.
PUBLISHERS’ NOTE
By the courtesy of Messrs. Rivington we have been able to enlarge the present edition of this book by the inclusion of Canon Taylor’s work on English village names^ recently described by Professor Henry Bradley as ‘‘ the only good general survey of this part of the subject that has yet been pub- lished.” This was originally published as an appendix to the author’s other work Names and their Histories; but we have now ventured to insert it where it seems to be required, after Chapter X., altering the numbering of the suc- ceeding chapters accordingly.
xui
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
THE SIGXIFICANCY OF LOCAL NAMES
PAGE
Local Names always significant, and possessed of great vitality —
Some descriptive — Geological value of such Names — Others con- serve ethnological and historical facts, or illustrate the state of civilisation or religion in past times . . . . . • 19
CHAPTER II
NAMES OF RECENT ORIGIN
Colonisation of America — Greenland — Leif Ericson — Columbus — Religious feeling in the Names given by the Spaniards and by the Puritans — Salem — Providence — The Quaker colony — Native Indian Names — The Elizabethan worthies: Frobisher, Davis,
Baffin, Hudson, Drake, and Gilbert — Adventures of Captain Smith — The French plantations — The Dutch in North and South America — Magalhaens — Spanish and Portuguese discoveries — The Dutch in the South Seas — New Zealand and New Holland — Recent Arctic discoveries . . . . . . *25
CHAPTER III
THE ETHNOLOGICAL VALUE OF LOCAL NAMES
Local Names are the beacon-lights of primeval history — The method of research illustrated by American Names — Recent pro- gress of Ethnology — The Celts, Anglo-Saxons, and Northmen — Retrocession of the Sclaves — Arabic Names — Ethnology of mountain districts — The Alps .......
CHAPTER IV
THE NAMES OF NATIONS
Ethnic Names are of obscure origin — Name of Britain — Many nations bear duplicate Names — Deutsche and Germans-^*' Barbarians *’ — Welsh — Gaels — Aryans — Names of conquering tribes — Ancient Ethnic Names conserved in those of modern cities — Ethnic Names from rulers — From geographical position — Europe — Asia — Africa — Ethnographic Names — “ Warriors ” — Mountaineers” — “ Low- landers ” — “ Foresters ” — “ Coastlanders ” — Greeks .
XV
55
XVI
Words and Places
CHAPTER V
THE PHCENICIANS
PAGE
Physical character of Phoenician sites — Tyre — Sidon — Phenice — Phoenician colonies in Crete, Cyprus, Sardinia, Corsica, Italy, Sicily, Malta, Africa, Spain, and Britain ..... 8o
CHAPTER VI
THE ARABS IN EUROPE
The empire of the Cailiphs — Arabic Names in Southern Italy and Sicily — ^Tribes by which the conquest of Sicily was effected— -Con- quest of Spain — Tarifa and Gibraltar — ^The Arabic article — River- names of Spain — Arabs in Southern France — ^They hold the passes of the Alps — The Monte Moro pass and its Arabic Names — The Muretto pass and Pontresina . . . . . . .87
CHAPTER VII
* THE ANGLO-SAXONS
England is the land of inclosures — This denoted by the character of Anglo-Saxon Names which end in “ ton,” “ yard,” “ worth,” fold,” “ hay,” and “ bury ” — Ham, the home — The Patronymic “ ing ” — ^Teutonic clans — Saxon colony near Boulogne — Saxon settlement in England began before the departure of the Romans —
Early Frisian settlement in Yorkshire — Litus Saxonicum near Caen — German Village-names in France and in Italy — Patronymics in Westphalia, Franconia, and Swabia — Seat of the “ Old-Saxons ” 99
CHAPTER VIII
THE NORTHMEN
Incursions of the Northmen — Norse test- words: “by,” “ thorpe,”
“ toft,” “ ville,” “ garth,” “ ford,” “ wick ” — Vestiges of the Danes near the Thames — Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, and Lincoln- shire— The Danelagh — Norwegians in Sutherland, the Orkneys, Shetlands, Hebrides, and Isle of Man — Cumberland and West- moreland— ^The Wirall — Colony in Pembrokeshire — Devonshire and the south coast — Northmen in Ireland — Intensity of the Scandinavian element in different parts of England — Northmen in France — Names in Normandy — Norse Names in Spain, Sicily, and the Hellespont — Local vestiges of the Anglo-Norman conquest — Anglo-Norman nobles in Scotland . . , . . .125
Contents
xvii
CHAPTER IX
THE CELTS
]
Prevalence of Celtic Names in Europe — Antiquity of River-names — The roots Avon, Dur, Stour, Esk, Rhe, and Don — Myth of the Danaides — Hybrid composition, and reduplication of S5rnonyms — Adjectival River-names: the Yare, Alne, Ban, Douglas, Leven, Tame, Aire, Cam, and Clyde — Celtic Mountain-names: cefn, pen, cenn, dun — Names of rocks — Valleys — Lakes — Dwellings — Cymric and Gadhelic test-words — Celts in Galatia — Celts in Ger- many, France, and Spain — Euskarian Names — Gradual retro- cession of Celts in England — Amount of the Celtic element— Division of Scotland between the Piets and Gaels — Inver and Aber — Ethnology of the Isle of Man ......
151
CHAPTER X
THE HISTORIC VALUE OF LOCAL NAMES
Contrast between Roman and Saxon civilisation, as shown by Local Names — Roman roads — “ Gates — Bridges and fords— Celtic bridges — Deficiency of inns — Cold Harbour — Saxon dykes — Roman walls — Saxon forts — “ Bury *’ — Ancient camps — Chester, caster, and caer — Stations of the Roman Legions — Frontier dis- tricts— Castile — ^The Mark — Pfyn, Devises — Ethnic Shire-names of England — Intrusive colonisation . . . . . .189
CHAPTER XI
ENGLISH VILLAGE-NAMES
Survivals and modified forms — Personal Names — Occupations and status — Himdreds, shires, and parishes — ^Towns and townships . 205
CHAPTER XII
THE STREET-NAMES OF LONDON
The walls of Old London — Gradual extension of the town — Absc«:p- tion of surrounding villages — ^The brooks: the Holborn, the
Tyburn, and the Westboume — ^Wells, conduits, ferries — Monastic establishments of London — Localities of certain trades — Sports and pastimes — Sites of residences of historic families preserved in the names of streets — ^The palaces of the Strand — Elizabethan London — Streets dating from the Restoration .... 265
XVlll
Words, and Places
CHAPTER XIII
HISTORIC SITES
PAGE
Places of popular assembly — Rimnimede — Moot-hill — Detmold —
The Scandinavian “ things ” or parliaments — The Thingvellir of Iceland — The Thingwalls and Dingwells of Great Britain — Tjmwald Hill in the Isle of Man — Battle-fields: Lichfield, Battle, Slaughter — Conflicts with the Danes — Eponymic Names — Myths of Early English History — Carisbrooke — Hen gist and Horsa — Cissa — ^lle — Cerdic — Offa — Maes Garmon — British Chieftains — Valetta — Alexander — Names of the Roman emperors — Modern Names of this class 277
CHAPTER XIV
SACRED SITES
Local vestiges of Saxon heathendom — ^Tiw, Frea, Woden, Thor, Balder — Celtic deities — Teutonic demigods — Wayland Smith —
Old Scratch — Old Nick — ^The Nightmare — Sacred groves and temples — Vestiges of Sclavonic heathendom — ^The Classic Pan- theon— Conversion of the northern nations — Paulinus at Good- manham — “ Llan ” and “ Kil ** — The hermits of the Hebrides — The local saints of Wales — Places of pilgrimage — The monastic houses ........... 298
CHAPTER XV
PHYSICAL CHANGES ATTESTED BY LOCAL NAMES
The nature of geological changes — The valley of the Thames once a lagoon filled with islets — Thanet once an island — Reclamation of Romney Marsh — Newhaven — Somersetshire — The Traeth Ma^\T — The Carse of Gowrie — Loch Maree — ^The Fens of Cambridge- shire— ^The Isle of Axholme — Silting-up of the Lake of Geneva — Increase of the Delta of the Po — Volcanoes — Destruction of ancient forests — Icelandic forests — ^The Weald of Kent — Increase of population — Populousness of Saxon England — ^The nature of Saxon husbandry — English vineyards — Extinct animals: the
wolf, badger, aurochs, and beaver — Ancient salt works — Light- houses— Changes in the relative commercial importance of towns 317
CHAPTER XVI
CHANGES AND ERRORS
Vitality of Local Names — Recurrence to Ancient Names — Changes in Names often simply phonetic — Lincoln — Sarum — Whitehall — Phonetic corruptions among savage tribes — Interchange of suffixes
Contents
XIX
PAGE
of analogous sound — Tendency to contraction — Laws of phonetic change — Examples — Influence of popular etymological speculation on the forms of Names — ^Tendency to make Names significant — Examples — Transformation of French Names — Invention of new saints from Local Names— Transformed Names often give rise to legends — Bozra — Thongcastle — ^The Dun Cow — Antwerp — The Mouse Tower — The Amazons of the Baltic — Pilatus — The Piets —
The Tatars — Poland — Mussulman — Negropont — Corruptions of Street-names — America — The Gypsies ..... 336
CHAPTER XVII
WORDS DERIVED FROM PLACES
Growth of Words out of Names — Process of transformation — Examples: cherry, peach, chestnut, walnut, quince, damson,
Guernsey lily, currant, shallot, coffee, cocoa, and rhubarb — Tobacco — Names of wines and liqueurs — Gin, negus, and grog — Names of animals: turkey, ermine, sable — Breeds of horses — Fish — Names of minerals: loadstone, magnet, agate, jet, nitre, ammonia — Textile fabrics — Manufactures of the Arabs: muslin, damask, gauze, fustian — Manufactures of the Flemings: cambric, diaper, duck, ticking, frieze — Republics of Northern Italy — Cravats — Worsted — Names of vehicles — The coach — Names of weapons — Inventions called from the name of the inventor — Pasquinade, punch, harlequin, charlatan, vaudeville — Mythical derivations — Names of coins — Moral significance attached to words derived from Ethnic Names — Examples: Gothic, bigot, cretin, frank, romance, gasconade, lumber, ogre, fiend, slav^e — Names of servile races — Tariff — Cannibal — Assassin — Spruce — Words derived from the practice of pilgrimage: saunter, roam, canter, fiacre, tawdry, flash — History of the word palace
CHAPTER XVIII
onomatology; or, the principles of name giving
Dangers which beset the etymologist — Rules of investigation — Names in the United States — List of some of the chief components of Local Names .........
APPENDIX A
List of Names of Ancient Tribes preserved in the Names of Modem Cities and Provinces ........
419
XX
Words and Places
APPENDIX B
PAGE
Comparison of Saxon Patronymics in Artois and in England . .421
Comparison of Patronymics in England, Germany, and France . 424
Index 437
MAPS
Map of the settlements of the Celts, Saxons, Danes, and Norwegians
in the British Isles and Northern France ..... i Sketch-Map showing the distribution of Arabic names in Spain and Portugal • . . . . . . . , -91
Sketch-Map of the Saxon colony in Picardy and Artois . . . 109
Sketch-Map showing the Teutonic settlements in France . . 119
Sketch-Map showing the settlements of the Northmen in Normandy 145
In these Maps each dot represents the position of an ethno- graphic local name.
SETTLEMENTS of the
CELTS, SAXONS.DANES & NORWEGIANS
in the
BRITISH ISLES & NORTHERN FRANCE
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
The First Edition of this book having been rapidly exhausted, I have been encouraged by its favourable reception to spare no labour which might make this Second Edition more complete and trustworthy.
Various errors have been detected, and while new matter to the extent of more than sixty pages has been introduced, a slight typographical rearrangement has prevented any increase in the absolute bulk of the volume. In endeavouring to secure increased accuracy and completeness, I have derived much valuable aid from the suggestions of many hitherto unknown correspondents, as well as from the able and careful reviews which have appeared in the literary journals.
My especial thanks, however, are due to the writers of two very able articles which appeared respectively in the Quarterly Review and the Times newspaper. I have also to thank a Saturday Reviewer for pointing out some oversights, though I regret that while professing an almost fanatical theoretic love for accuracy of detail, he should, in his article, have exhibited so many conspicuous illustrations of the practical difficulty of attaining it. For instance, he quotes a passage where I say,
On Brent Knoll, near Athelney, in Somersetshire, is a camp which tradition ascribes to Alfred, and near the foot of the hill stands the village of Battlebury.” The reviewer remarks that this “ statement contains more mistakes than there are lines. Brent Knoll is not near Athelney. Battlebury is not a village, but a mound; nor is it near either Brent Knoll or Athelney.’' I certainly do not possess the advantage which the reviewer apparently enjoys of residing in Somersetshire, but still I must maintain that I am altogether right, and that he is altogether wrong. Gough, one of our safest topographical authorities, asserts that Battlebury is ‘‘ a village,” and that it is near the foot of Brent Knoll. The Ordnance Survey, which spells the name in the alternative form, Battleborough, places it exactly at the foot of Brent Knoll — ^half-a-mile from the summit of the hill. Moreover, it makes Battleborough not a mound, but a hamlet of ten houses. Brent Knoll is about half-a-day’s
2
Words and Places
march from Athelney, which may fairly be called “ near/’ when my object was to suggest that the camp on Brent Emoll might without improbability be regarded as having been an outpost of Alfred’s head-quarters at Athelney.
I should be glad, were it worth the space, to examine other supposed corrections of this reviewer, but to do so would be wearisome and profitless. A few of his suggestions I have thank- fully accepted; with regard to the rest, I must demur to his assumed infallibility both in matters of opinion and of fact.
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
Nearly two years have passed since this volume was first announced as ready for the press. At that time it did not seem premature to make such an announcement, inasmuch as ten years had been devoted, more or less, to the collection of materials, and the several chapters of the work had been written, and in great part re-written.
The delay that has occurred in the publication will easily be understood and accounted for by those who have been engaged on fields of research where new and untrodden paths are continu- ally inviting exploration, and where many commonly-received opinions require to be examined anew, and perhaps to be corrected in accordance with later or more exact investigation. Some limit, however, must be assigned to such inquiries, which might otherwise be pursued endlessly. In truth, the volume has already far exceeded the size that was at first intended for it, and therefore, such as it has become, it is now put into the reader’s hand.
The design of the work, and an outline of its contents, are sufiiciently set forth in the Introductory Chapter, and need not therefore be spoken of in this place.
It may appear strange that a subject so fertile in suggestive materials should not already have received due attention from any competent English student. Since the publication, two centuries ago, of Verstegan’s Restitution of Decayed Intelligence in Antiquities f no work has appeared in England bearing any great resemblance to the present one. There are, it is true, a few alphabetical lists of geographical etymologies: — such
Preface to the First Edition
3
are Baxter’s crude collection of ingenious conjectures and wild etymological dreams, and Skinner’s Etymologicon Onomasticon, a far more safe and sober guide. Of more recent date are Mr. Qiamock’s Local Etymology, a book exhibiting some research, but no critical faculty whatever, and a few small school-books, of greater or less value, by Messrs. Sullivan, Gibson, Morris, Hughes, Boardman, and Adams. These, however, being all arranged on the alphabetical plan, are as unreadable as they are, for the most part, untrustworthy.
On the Continent, in Germany especially, subjects allied to that of this volume have been copiously and eruditely treated by such men as Jacob Grimm, Pott, Zeuss, Forstemann, Wilhelm Von Humboldt, Diefenbach, Ejiobel, Renan, and Pictet. It will be obvious that the author has derived great aid in the ac- complishment of his task from the labours of these distinguished scholars, whose acknowledged learning, accuracy, ingenuity, and caution need no commendation from him. Leo, Gliick, Buttmann, and De Belloguet, though lesser stars abroad, would in England be luminaries of the first magnitude. There are also numerous monographs of great value hidden in the transactions of foreign academies: — such are the essays of Vilmar, Piderit, Massmann, Petersen, and Meyer, with which the English monographs of Ferguson, Hartshome, and Monk- house are worthy to rank. The somewhat dangerous works of Dr. Donaldson and Dr. Latham have been used with caution, and have contributed useful materials and suggestions.
The author cannot allow himself to suppose that, in writing upon a subject which ranges over so wide and various a field, he has always been successful in his endeavour to avoid errors. He can only make this statement — that he has laboriously aimed at accuracy, both in advancing general statements, and in making references to the authorities which he cites. It is, perhaps, unnecessary to state that the common but objection- able practice of quoting at second hand has in no case been adopted without the reader’s attention being expressly drawn to the fact. For the convenience of those who may feel inclined to pursue any of the lines of research which are indicated in the notes, a Bibliographical List has been compiled, enumerat- ing the exact titles and editions of the books consulted.
In conclusion, the author has the agreeable task of ac- knowledging his obligations to those who have given him the benefit of their special acquaintance with certain departments of his subject. The chapters relating to the Semitic languages
Words and Places
4
have been kindly revised by the Venerable Archdeacon Tattam, D.D., LL.D.; by the Rev. H. G. Williams, B.D., Professor of Arabic at Cambridge; and by E. Stanley Poole, Esq. The chapter on Celtic names has been annotated by the Rev. John Davies, M.A., while Professor Donkin, of Queen’s College, Liver- pool, has given the benefit of his acquaintance with the Sanskrit and the Romance languages. G. P. Marsh, Esq., the United States Minister at Turin, has contributed most useful biblio- graphic information, and has also communicated observ^ations of his own upon the ethnology of Northern Italy; and the Rev. S. A. Brooke, Chaplain to the British Embassy at Berlin, has given constant literary aid, and has made numerous valuable suggestions during the progress of the work. Lastly, the author’s thanks are due to the authorities at the Topographic Department of the Royal Engineers, and at the library of the Royal Geo- graphical Society, who have afforded every facility for the consultation of their extensive collections of ancient and modern maps.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL LIST OF BOOKS CONSULTED
Abela, F. Giovanfrancesco : — Malta lllusirata^ ovvero descrizione di Malta, Isola del Mare Siciliano e Adriatico, con sue antichitd ed altre notizie, etc. 2 vols. fol. Malta, 1772.
Adami, M. Canonici Bremensis: — Libellus de situ Danice. (Elzevir.) 24mo. Lugduni Batavorum, 1629.
Adelung, Johann Christoph, und Vater: — Mithridates ; oder allge- meine Sprachenkunde. 4 vols. 8vo. Berl. 1806, 1809, 1817.
Alcock, Sir Rutherford: — The Capital of the Tycoon ; a Narra- tive of a Three Years' Residence in Japan. 2 vols. 8vo. Lond. 1863.
Amari, Michele: — Storia dei Musul- mani di Sicilia. 2 vols. 8vo. Firenze, 1854-1858.
Ammiani Marcellini : — Qucb super- sunt. 3 vols. 8vo. Lipsiae, 1808.
Ansted, Prof. D. T. : — A Short Trip to Hungary and Transylvania. 8 VO. Lond. 1862.
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6
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Marsh, George P. : — The Origin and History of the English Language. 8 VO. Lond. 1862.
Marsh, George P. : — Man and Nature ; of, Physical Geography as modified by Human Action. 8vo. Lond. 1864.
Matthaei Paris: — Historia Major,
12
Words and Places
Ed. Will. Wats. Folio. Lend. 1640.
Maury, L. F. Alfred: — Hisioire des Grandes For its d^ la Gaule, et de Vancienne France. 8vo. Paris, 1850.
Mayhew, Henry: — German Life and Manners as seen in Saxony at the Present Day. 2 vols. 8vo. Lond. 1864.
Menage: — Les Origines de la Langue Frangoise. 4to. Paris, 1650.
Meyer, Dr. Charles: — On the Im- portance of the Study of the Celtic Language. In the Reports of the British Association for 1847.
Meyer, Dr. H. : — Die Ortsnamen des Kantons Zurich. In the Mittheilungen der Antiquarischen Gesellschaft in Zurich, vol. vi. 4to. 1848.
Michel, Francisque: — Histoire des Races Maudites de la France et de VEspagne. 2 vols. 8vo. Paris, 1847.
Miller, Hugh: — Sketch-Book of Popular Geology ; being a series of Lectures delivered before the Philo- sophical Institution of Edinburgh. 8 VO. Edinburgh, 1859.
Milman, Henry Hart, Dean of St. Paul’s: — History of Latin Christianity. Second Edition. 6 vols. 8vo. 1857.
Mommsen, Theodore: — The History of Rome. Translated by the Rev. W. P. Dickson. 2 vols. 8vo. Lond. 1862.
Mommsen, Theodore: — The Earliest Inhabitants of Italy. Translated by George Robertson. 8vo. Lond. 1858.
Monkhouse, Rev. W., B.D. : — Etymologies of Bedfordshire. 8vo. Bedford, 1857.
Mone, Franz Joseph: — Geschichte des Heidenthums im ndrdlichen Europa. 2 vols. 8vo. Leipsig und Darmstadt, 1822, 1823.
Mone, Franz Joseph: — Celtische Forschungen zur Geschichte Mittel- europas. 8vo. Freiburg in Breis- gau, 1857.
Morris, R. : — The Etymology of Local Names, with a short Intro- duction to the Relationship of Languages. i2mo. Lond. 1857.
Motley^ John Lothrop: — The Rise
of the Dutch Republic. 3 vols. i2mo. Lond. 1861.
Movers, F. C. : — Die Phonizier. 3 vols. 8 VO. Berlin und Bonn, 1841, 1849, 1850.
Movers, F. C. : — Phonizien. In Ersch und Gruber’s Allgemeine Ency- klopadie. Part iii. vol. xxiv. pp. 3I9-443-
Muller, Ferd. H. : — Der Ugrische Volksstamm. 2 vols. 8vo. Berlin, 1837, 1839.
Muller, Hermann : — Die Marken des Vaterlandes. Vol. i. 8vo. Bonn, 1837.
Muller, Karl Otfried: — Prolegomena zu einer Wissenschaftlichen My- thologie. 8 VO. Gottingen, 1825. Muller, C. O. : — History and Anti- quities of the Doric Race. Trans- lated by H. Tufnell and G. C. Lewis. Second Edition. 2 vols. 8vo. 1839.
Muller, Max, M.A. : — Lectures on the Science of Language. Second Edition. 8vo. Lond. 1862. Second Series, 1864.
Muller, Max: — On Comparative Mythology. In Oxford Essays for 1856. 8 VO. Lond.
Muller, Wilhelm : — Geschichte und System der altdeutschen Religion. 8 VO. Gottingen, 1844.
Murphy, J. C.: — The History of the Mahometan Empire in Spain. 4to. Lond. 1816.
Murray, John: — A Handbook for Travellers in Switzerland and the Alps of Savoy and Piedmont. Eighth Edition. 8vo. Lond. 1854.
Murray, John: — Handbook of Devon and Cornwall. 8vo. Lond. 1859. Newman, Francis W.: — Regal Rome. i2mo. Lond. 1852. Nicholls, Rev. H. G., U.K.\—The Forest of Dean, an Historical and Descriptive Account. Sq. 8vo. Lond. 1858.
Niebuhr, B. G. : — Lectures on Ancient Ethnography and Geography. Translated by Dr. L. Schmitz. 2 vols. 8vo. Lond. 1853. Niebuhr, B. G. : — Lectures on the History of Rome. Edited by Dr. L. Schmitz. 3 vols. 8vo. Lond. 1844-1849.
Niebuhr, B. G. : — The History of Rome. Translated by J. C. Hare
Bibliographical List of Books Consulted 1 3
and Connop ThirlwalL Fourth Edition. 3 vols. Syo. Lond. 1847-1851.
Olshausen, J. : — Ueber phonicische Ortsnamen ausserhalb des semi- tischen Sprachgebiets. In vol. viii. of the Rheinisches Museum fiir Philologie. 8vo. Frankfurt am Maine, 1853.
Ormerod, George: — History of the County Palatine and City of Chester. 3 vols. fol. Lond. 1819.
Palgrave, Sir Francis: — History of Normandy and England. 4 vols. 8vo. Lond. 1851, 1857, 1864.
Palgrave, Sir Francis: — History of the Rise and Progress of the English Commonwealth during the Anglo-Saxon Period. 2 vols. 4to. Lond. 1832.
Panzer, Friederich : — Beitrag zur Deutschen Mythologie. 8vo. Miinchen, 1848.
Papon: — Histoire Generale de Pro- vence. 4 vols. 4to. Paris, 1777- 1786.
Pauli, Dr. Reinold: — Pictures of Old England. Translated by E. C. Otte. 8vo. Lond. 1861.
Pennant, Thomas: — A Tour in Wales. 2 vols. 4to. Lond. 1778-1784.
Pennant, Thomas: — Some Account of London. Third Edition. 4to. London, 1793.
Pertz, G. H.: — Monumenta Ger- manics Historica, ab anno Christi 500 usque ad annum 1500. 12
vols. fol. Hannov. 1826-1848.
Petersen, N. M., and Le Prevost: — Recherches sur Vorigine, Vety- mologie^ et le signification primi- tive de quelques noms de lieux en Normandie. Traduites au danois par M. de La Roquette. In the Bulletin de la Societe de Geo- graphie, Jan. 1835. 8vo. Paris,
1835-
Philological Museum. 2 vols. 8vo. Cambridge, 1832, 1833.
Philological Society^ Proceedings of the. 6 vols. 8 VO. Lond. 1842-
1853-
Philological Society, Transactions of the. 8vo. Lond. 1854-1861.
Philology, Comparative : — In the Edinburgh Review, vol. xci. Oct. 1851.
Philosophical Transactions of the
Royal Society of London. 4to. Lond.
Pictet, Adolphe: — Les Origines Indo-Europeennes, ou les Ary as Primitifs. 2 vols. 8vo. Paris, 1859, 1863.
Piderit, Dr. F. C. H.: — Die Orts- namen in der Provinz Nieder- hessen. In the Zeitschrift des Vereins fiir hessische Geschichte und Landeskunde, vol. i. pp. 283- 316. Kassel, 1837.
Piers Ploughman. The Vision and the Creed of. 2 vols. i2mo. Lond. 1832.
Pihan, A. - P. : — Glossaire des Mots Frangais tires de VArabe, du Persan, et du Turc, etc. 8vo. Paris, 1847.
Planta, Joseph: — An Account of the Romansch Language. In the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, vol. Ixvi. 4to. 1776.
Porter, Major Whitworth, R.E.: — History of the Knights of Malta. 2 vols. 8 VO. Lond. 1858.
Poste, Rev. Beale: — Britannic Re- searches. 8 VO. Lond. 1853.
Pott, Dr. A. F. : — Etymologische Forschungen auf dem Gebiete der Indo - Germanischen Sprachen. 2 vols. 8 VO. Lemgo, 1833.
Pott, Dr. August Friedrich: — Die Personen-namen, insbesondere die F amilien-namen und ihre Ent- stehungsarten, auch unter Beruck- sichtigung der Ortsnamen. 8vo. Leipsig, 1853.
Pott, Dr. A. F.: — Die Zigeuner in Europa und Asien. 2 vols. 8vo. Halle, 1844, 1845.
Pott, Dr. A. F. : — Mytho-Etymo- logie. In Kuhn’s Zeitschrift. Vol. ix.
Pott, Dr. A. F. : — Etymologische Spahne. In Kuhn’s Zeitschrift. Vol. V.
Pott, Dr. A. F. : — Indo-Germani- scher Sprachstamm. In Ersch und Gruber’s Allgemeine Encyklo- padie. Second Section. Vol. xviii. pp. I- 1 12.
Poulson, George : — The History and Antiquities of the Seignory of Holderness. 2 vols. 4to. Hull, 1840, 1841.
Preller, C. : — Griechische Mytho- logie. 2 vols. 8vo. Leipsig, 1854.
14 Words and Places
Prescott, W. H. : — History of Ferdi- nand and Isabella. 3 vols. i2mo. Lond. 1850.
Prescott, W. H. : — History of the Conquest of Peru. Fourth Edition. 3 vols. i2mo. Lond. 1850.
Prichard, Dr. James C. : — Researches into the Physical History of Man- kind. Third Edition. 4 vols. 8vo. 1841-1847.
Prichard, Dr. James C.: — The Eastern Origin of the Celtic Nations. Edited by Dr. Latham. 8vo. Lond. 1857.
Prichard, Dr. J. C. : — On the Various Methods of Research which Contribute to the Advance- ment of Ethnology. In the Re- ports of the Seventeenth Meeting of the British Association for 1847.
Pryce, William, M.D. : — Archceo- logia Cornu- Britannica ; or an Essay to Preserve the Ancient Cornish Language. 4to. Sher- boume, 1790.
Purchas: — His Pilgrimes. 5 vols. folio. Lond. 1625.
Quarterly Journal of Education. 10 vols. 8vo. Lond. 1831-1835.
Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society. 8vo. Lond.
Radlof, Dr. I. G.: — Neue Unier- suchungen des Keltenthumes. 8vo. Bonn, 1822.
Rawlinson, Rev. George, M.A., Sir Henry Rawlinson, K.C.B., and Sir J. G. Wilkinson, F.R.S.: — The History of Herodotus. A New English Version, with copious Notes and Appendices, etc. 4 vols. 8 VO. Lond. 1858.
Redding, Cyrus: — History and Description of Modern Wines. Third Edition. 8vo. Lond. 1851.
Rees, Rev. W. J. : — Lives of the Cambro - British Saints. 4to. Llandovery, 1853.
Rees, Prof. Rev. Rice, M. A. : — An Essay on the Welsh Saints, or the Primitive Christians usually considered to have been the founders of Churches in Wales. 8vo. Lond. 1836.
Reinaud, L’Abbe Joseph-Toussaint: — Invasions des Sarazins en France, et de France en Savoie ; en Piemont et dans la Suisse,
Pe'ndant Ics 8e, ge et loe SiecUs de notre ^e. 8vo. Paris, 1836.
Renan, Ernest: — De VOrigine du Langage. Second Edition. 8vo. Paris, 1858.
Renan, Ernest : — Histoire Generate et Systeme Compare des Langues Semitiques. Pt. i. Third Edition. 8 VO. Paris, 1863.
Revue Archeologique. 8vo. Paris.
Robertson, E. William : — Scotland under her Early Kings ; a History of the Kingdom to the Close of the Thirteenth Century. 2 vols. 8vo. Edinburgh, 1862.
Robinson, Edward, D.D. : — Biblical Researches in Palestine, Mount Sinai, and Arabia Petreea. 3 vols. 8 VO. Lond. 1841.
Robinson, Edward, D.D., LL.D.: — Later Biblical Researches in Palestine and the adjacent Regions. 8vo. Lond. 1856.
Russell, W. H. : — My Diary, North and South. 2 vols. Svo. Lond. 1863.
Saint Fargeau, A. Girault de: — Dictionnaire des toutes les Com- munes de la France. 3 vols. 4to. Paris, 1844-1846.
St. John, James Augustus: — History of the Four Conquests of Eng- land. 2 vols. 8 VO. Lond. 1862.
Salverte, Eusebe: — Essai Historiqut et Philosophique sur les Noms d'Hommes, de Peuples, et des Lieux. 2 vols. 8vo. Paris, 1824.
Sankey, William S. : — The Porte- feuille of Science and Art. Svo. Edinburgh, 1838.
Saxon Chronicle. See Ingram.
Sayer, Captain: — The History of Gibraltar. Svo. Lond. 1862.
Schafarik, Paul Joseph: — Slawische Alterthiimer. Deutsch von M. von Aehreiifeld. 2 vols. Svo. Leip- sig, 1843, 1844.
Schleicher, A. : — Die Sprachen Europas. Svo. Bonn, 1850.
Schleicher, A. : — Zur Vergleich- enden Sprachengeschichte. Bonn, 1848.
Schmeller, J. A.: — Ueber die soge- nannten Cimbern der VII. und XIII. Communen auf den Vene- dischen Alpen, und ihre Sprache. In the Abhandlungen der Philo- sophisch - Philolog - Classe der Kdniglich Bayerisch Akademie
Bibliographical List of Books Consulted 1 5
der Wissenschaften, vol. ii. pt. 3, pp. 559-708. 4to. Miinchen, 1834.
Schott, Albert : — Die Deutschen Colonien in Piemont. 8vo. Stutt- gart und Tubingen, 1842.
Schott, Albert: — Die Deutschen am Monte Rosa^ mit ihren Stammge- nosser in Wallis und Uechtland. 4to. Zurich, 1840.
Sheppard, Dr. John G. : — The Fall of Rome^ and the Rise of the New Nationalities. 8vo. Lond. 1861.
Singer, S. W. : — Way land Smith, a Dissertation on a Tradition of the Middle Ages ; from the French of G. B. Depping and Francisque Michel, with additions. i2mo. Lond, 1847.
Skene, William F. : — The High- landers of Scotland ; their Origin, History, and Antiquities. 2 vols, i2mo. 1837.
Smiles, Samuel: — Lives of the En- gineers. 2 vols. 8vo. Lond. 1861.
Smith, George, LL.D. : — The Cassiterides : an Inquiry into the Commercial Operations of the Phoenicians in Western Europe. 8vo. Lond. 1863.
Smith, Goldwin : — Irish History and Irish Character. 8vo. Oxford and Lond. 1861.
Smith, J. T.: — Antiquarian Rambles through the Streets of London. 2 vols. 8 VO. Lond. 1846.
Smith, Captaine John: — The Gene- rali Historie of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles. 4to. Lond. 1627.
Smith, Captaine John: — The True Travels, Adventures, and Obser- vations of, in Europe, Asia, Af riche, and America. 4to. Lond. 1630.
Smith, Dr. W. : — Dictionary of
Greek and Roman Geography. 2 vols. 8vo. Lond. 1856, 1857.
Sousa, Fr, Joao de: — Vestigios da Lingua Arabica em Portugal. 8vo, Lisboa, 1789.
Souvestre, Emile: — Les Derniers Britons. 2 vols. i2mo. Paris, 1854.
Sparschuh, Dr. N. : — Berichti- gungen und Beitrage zu Grimm's Geschichte der Deutschen Sprache.
8 VO. Maintz, 1850.
Stalder, Franz Joseph: — Die Lan- dessprachen der Schweiz, oder
Schweizerischc Dialektologie. i2mo. Aarau, 1819.
Stanley, Rev. A. P. (Dean of Westminster) : — Historical Memo- rials of Canterbury. Second Edition. 8vo. Lond. 1855.
Stanley, Rev. A. P.: — The Study of Modern History in London. A Lecture. 8vo. Lond. 1854.
Stanley, Dr. Arthur Penrhyn: — Sinai and Palestine : in Connexion with their History. Twelfth Thousand. 8vo. Lond. 1862.
Stanley, Dr. A. P.: — Lectures on the History of the Jewish Church. 8vo. Lond. 1863.
Steub, Ludwig: — Ueber die Urbe- wohner Rdtiens, und ihrer Zusam- menhang mit den Etruskern. 8vo. Miinchen, 1843.
Steub, Ludwig : — Zur Rhdtischen Ethnologic. 8vo. Stuttgart, 1854.
Stow, John: — Survey of the Cities of London and Westminster. 2 vols. folio. Lond. 1720.
Strinnholm, A. M.: — Vikingzuge der alien Skandinavier. A us dem Schwedischen, von Dr. C. F. Frisch. 8vo. Hamburg, 1839.
Sullivan, Robert, LL.D.: — A Dic- tionary of Derivations ; or, an Introduction to Etymology on a New Plan. Seventh Edition. i2mo. Dublin, 1855.
Symington, Andrew James: — Pen and Pencil Sketches of Faroe and Iceland. 8vo. Lond. 1862.
Talbot, H. Fox: — English Ety- mologies. 8vo. Lond. 1847.
Tallack, William: — Malta under the Phenicians, Knights, and English. 8vo. Lond. 1861.
Taylor, Joseph: — Antiquitates Curi- osce : the Etymology of many Re- markable Old Sayings, Proverbs, and Singular Customs explained. i2mo. Lond. 1818.
Thierry, Amedee: — Histoire des Gaulois. Second Edition. 3 vols. 8 VO. Paris, 1835.
Thierry, Augustin : — Historical Works of, containing the Conquest of England by the Normans, and Narrative of the Merovingian Era. 8 VO. Lond. 1851.
Thirlwall, Connop, Bishop of St. David’s: — The History of Greece. 8 VO. Lond. 1845.
Thornbury, G. W.: — The Monarchs
Words and Places
i6
of the Main; or. Adventures of the Buccaneers. 3 vols. 8vo. Lond.
1855.
Thorpe, Benjamin: — Northern My- thology ; comprising the principal Popular Traditions and Supersti- tions of Scandinavia, North Ger- many, and the Ndherlands. 3 vols. 8 VO. Lond. 1851.
Thrupp, John: — The Anglo-Saxon Home, a History of the Domestic Institutions and Customs of Eng- land from the Fifth to the Eleventh Century. 8vo. Lond. 1862.
Timbs, John : — Curiosities of London, i2mo. Lond. 1855.
Tooke, John Horne: — EIIEA HTEPOENTA: or, the Diversions of Parley. Second Edition. (First Edition of part ii.) 4to. Lond. 1798-1805.
Train, Joseph: — An Historical and Statistical Account of the Isle of Man. 2 vols. 8vo. Douglas, 1845.
Trench, Richard Chenevix, D.D. (Archbishop of Dublin) :—^n the Study of Words. Fifth Edition. i2mo, Lond. 1853.
Trench, Dr. R. C. : — English Past and Present. Five Lectures. Fourth Edition. i2mo. Lond. 1859-
Trench, Dr, R. C. : — A Select Glos- sary of English Words used formerly in senses different from their present. Second Edition. Lond. i2mo. 1859.
Trollope, Adolphus: — A Lenten Journey in Umbria and the Marches. 8vo. Lond. 1862.
Tschudi: — Haupt-Schliissel zu ver- schiedenen AUerthumen. Fol. Constantz, 1758.
Turner, Sharon: — The History of the Anglo-Saxons. Fifth Edition. 3 vols. 8vo. Lond. 1828.
Ungrisches Magazin. 4 vols. 8vo. Pressburg, 1781-1787.
Verstegan, Richard: — Restitution of Decayed Intelligence in Antiquities. i2mo. Lond. 1673.
Vilmar, Dr. : — Die Ortsnamen in Kurhessen. In the Zeitschrift des Vereins fur hessische Geschichte und Landeskunde. Vol. i. pp. 237-282. 8vo. Kassel, 1837.
Wamkonig, Leopold August: — Flandrische Staats- und Rechts-
geschichte, bis zum Jahr, 1305. 3
vols. 8vo. Tubingen, 1835-1842. Warter, Rev. John Wood: — The Seaboard and the Down ; or. My Parish in the South. 2 vols. 8vo. Lond. i860.
Weber, Albrecht: — Indische Skizzen.
8vo. Berlin, 1857.
Wedgwood, Hensleigh: — A Dic- tionary of English Etymology. Vols. i. and ii. 8vo. Lond. 1859, etc.
Welsford, Henry: — On the Origin and Ramifications of the English Language. 8vo. Lond. 1845. Wenrich, Joannes Georgius : — Rerum ah Arabibus in Italia insulisque adjacentibus, Sicilia maxime, Sardinia atque Corsica gestarum Commentarii. 8vo. Lipsise, 1845.
Weston, Stephen, B.D. : — Remains of Arabic in the Spanish and Portuguese Languages. i2mo. Lond. 1818.
Wheeler, J. Talboys: — The Geo- graphy of Herodotus. 8vo. Lond. 1854.
Whitaker, John: — The History of Manchester. 2 vols. 4to. Lond.
1775.
Whitaker, Thomas Dunham: — An History of the Original Parish of Whalley, and Honor of Clitheroe. Third Edition. Folio. Lond. 1818.
Wilkinson, Sir J. G.: — Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyp- tians. 6 vols. 8 VO. Lond. First Series, 1837; Second Series, 1841.
Williams, Archdeacon. John: — Essays on Various Subjects. 8vo. Lond. 1858.
Williams, Roger: — A Key into the Languages of America. i6mo. Lond. 1643.
Wilson, Daniel: — The Archaeology and Pre-historic Annals of Scot- land. Royal 8vo. Edin. 1851. Wilson, Daniel, F.S.A.: — Pre- historic Man ; Researches into the Origin of Civilisation in the Old and the New World. 2 vols. 8vo. Cambridge, 1862.
Wilton, Rev. Edward, M. A. : — The Negeb, or “ South Country of Scripture. i2mo. Lond. 1863. Witte, J. H. F. Carl: — Alpinisches
Bibliographical List of Books Consulted 1 7
und Transalpinisches. Neuen V or- trdge. i6mo. Berlin, 1858.
Worsaae, J. J. A.: — An Account of the Danes and Norwegians in England^ Scotland^ and Ireland. 8 VO. Lond. 1852.
Wright, Thomas, M.A. : — Essays on Archaeological Subjects. 2 vols. 8 VO. Lond. 1861.
Wright, Thomas, M.A. : — Wander- ings of an Antiquary^ chiefly upon the Traces of the Romans in Britain. i2mo. Lond. 1854.
Wright, Thomas, M.A.: — The Celt^ the Roman^ and the Saxon. 8vo. Lond. 1861.
Wright, Thomas, M.A. ; — On Way- land Smith. In the Journal of the Archaeological Association, vol. xvi. pp. 50-58.
[Yonge, C. M.] : — History of Chris- tian Names. 2 vols. 8vo. Lond. 1863.
Zeitschrift fur V ergleichende Sprach- forschung auf dem Gehiete des
Deutschen, Griechischen und La- teinischen. Herausgegeben von Dr. T. Aufrecht und Dr. A. Kuhn. 10 vols. 8vo. Berlin, 1852, etc.
Zeitschrift der Morgenlandische Gesellschaft.
Zeitschrift fur Deutsche Mythologie, und Siitenkunde. 4 vols. 8vo. Gottingen, 1853-1859.
Zeitschrift fiir Deutsches Alterthum. See Haupt.
Zeitschrift fiir die Wissenschaft der Sprache. 8vo. Greifswald, 1845, etc. See Hofer.
Zeuss, J.- C. : — Grammatica Celtica, 2 vols. (paged continuously) 8vo. Leipsig, 1853.
Zeuss, Kaspar: — Die Herkunft der Baiern von den Markomannen gegen die bisherigen Muthmassun- gen bewiesen. 8vo. Miinchen, 1839.
Zeuss, Kaspar : — Die Deutschen und die N achbarstdmme. 8vo. Miinchen, 1837.
Classical writers, such as Pliny, Tacitus, Josephus, Juvenal, Jerome, Beda, Gregory the Great, etc., are cited by the chapter and verse. The same has been done with the English classics — such as . Shakespeare, Chaucer, Wicliffe, Milton, Scott, and Blackstone.
The titles of the German Philological Journals quoted are given at full length in the preceding list. This has not seemed to be necessary with well-known English periodicals — such as the Quarterly, Edinburgh, North British, and Saturday Reviews, The Times, The Guardian, Notes and Queries.
Great use has been made of Richardson’s New Dictionary of the English Language, 2 vols. 4to; as well as the useful Imperial Dictionary. I have constantly consulted K. von Spruner’s Historisch-Geographisches Hand- Atlas ; the Maps of the Useful Knowledge Society; the Ordnance Survey of Great Britain; and the convenient reduction published by Crutchley. I have also used the large Government Surveys of France, Switzerland, Belgium, Wurtemberg, Bavaria, etc., and other ancient and modern maps too numerous to mention.
■■■ .
■' j .'i; .‘i?J '! / t'Ss.: ;’,S*-‘-Viqt.'t'>;.>jI'i
WORDS AND PLACES
CHAPTER I
THE SIGNIFICANCY OF LOCAL NAMES
Local Names always significant, and possessed of great vitality — Some de- scriptive— Geological value of such names — Others conserve ethno- logical and historical facts, or illustrate the state of civilisation- or religion in past times.
Local names — whether they belong to provinces^ cities, and villages, or are the designations of rivers and mountains — are never mere arbitrary sounds, devoid of meaning. They may always be regarded as records of the past, inviting and re- warding a careful historical interpretation.
In many instances the original import of such names has faded away, or has become disguised in the lapse of ages; nevertheless, the primeval meaning may be recoverable, and whenever it is recovered we have gained a symbol that may prove itself to be full-fraught with instruction ; for it may in- dicate— emigrations — immigrations — the commingling of races by war and conquest, or by the peaceful processes of commerce : — the name of a district or of a town may speak to us of events which written history has failed to commemorate. A local name may often be adduced as evidence determinative of controversies that otherwise could never be brought to a con- clusion.
The names of places are conser\^ative of the more archaic forms of a living language, or they embalm for us the guise and fashion of speech in eras the most remote. These topographic words, which float down upon the parlance of successive generations of men, are subject in their course to less phonetic abrasion than the other elements of a people’s speech. Such words, it is true, are subject to special perils, arising from attempts at accommodating their forms to the requirements of popular etymological speculation; but, on the other hand, they are more secure than other words from the modifying influences of grammatical inflection.
19
20
Words and Places
The name of many an ancient city seems as if it were endowed with a sort of inherent and indestructible vitality: it is still uttered, unchanged in a single letter — monumentum cere peren- nius — while fragments of marble columns, or of sculptures in porphyry or granite, are seen strewing the site confusedly.^
What has been affirmed by the botanist as to the floras of limited districts, may be said, with little abatement, concerning local names — that they survive the catastrophes which over- throw empires, and that they outlive devastations which are fatal to almost everything besides. Wars may trample down or extirpate whatever grows upon a soil, excepting only its wild flowers, and the names of those sites upon w^hich man has found a home. Seldom is a people utterly exterminated,*^ for the proud conqueror leaves ‘‘ of the poor of the land ’’ to till the glebe anew; and these enslaved outcasts, though they may hand down no memory of the splendid deeds of the nation^s heroes, yet retain a most tenacious recollection of the names of the hamlets which their own ignoble progenitors inhabited, and near to which their fathers were interred.
Nine teen-twen tie ths of the vocabulary of any people lives only in the literature and the speech of the cultured classes.^ But the remainder — the twentieth part — ^has a robust life in the daily usage of the sons of toil : and this limited portion of the national speech never fails to include the names of those objects which are the most familiar and the most beloved. A few score of household words ’’ have thus been retained as the common inheritance of the whole of the Indo-European nations;^ and the same causes have secured the local preser- vation of local names.
^ As in the case of Tadmor, Sidon, or Hamath.
* Thus in the historical books of the Old Testament, we have, incidentally, a proof of the large Canaanite element remaining after the Israelitish conquest of Palestine. We see the old Canaanite names struggling for existence with those imposed by the conquerors: — Kirjath Arba with Hebron; Kirjath Sepher with Debir; Keneth with Nobar; Luz with Bethel; Ephratah with Bethlehem. — See Stanley’s Lectures on the Jewish Churchy p. 275.
® Of the 50,000 words in the English language, some 10,000 constitute the vocabulary of an educated Englishman, and certainly not 1000, perhaps not more than 500, are heard in the mouths of the labouring classes. — See Marsh, Lectures on the English Language, pp. 125, 126; Max Muller, Lectures on the Science of Language, p. 268; Saturday Review, Nov. 2, 1861.
* The names of the numerals, of father, mother, and brother, of the parts of the body, of two or three of the commoner metals, tools, cereals, and domesticated animals, such as the cat, the mouse, and the goose, as well as the names of the plough, of grist, of fire, of the house, as well as some of
21
Significancy of Local Names
These appellations, which have thus been floated forward from age to age, have often, or they had at first, a descriptive import; — they tell us something of the physical features of the land. Thus it is that they may either give aid to the philologist when the aspect of the country remains the same — ^its visible forms standing in view as a sort of material lexicon of a tongue that has ceased to be vernacular; or, on the other hand, where the face of nature has undergone extensive changes — ^where there were formerly, it may be, forests that have been cleared, marshes that have been drained, coast-lines that have advanced seaward, rivers that have extended their deltas or found new channels, estuaries that have been converted into alluvial soil, lakes that have been silted up, islands that have become gentle inland slopes surrounded by waving com-flats; — in all such cases, instances of which will be adduced hereafter, these pertinacious names have a geological significance — they come into use as a record of a class of events, as to which, for the most part, written history is silent. In this manner — and the instances are many — the names of places become available as the beacon-lights of geologic history. In truth, there are instances in which local names, conserved in places where little or nothing else that is human has endured, may be adduced as evidence of vast physical mutations, side by side with the stone hatchets and the spear-heads of the drift of Abbeville, the canoes and anchors found in the alluvium of the Carse of Falkirk and Strathclyde, the gnawed bones of the Kirkdale Cavern, the glaciated rocks of Wales, the rain-dinted slabs of Sussex, and other massive vouchers in the physical history of the globe.
The picturesque or descriptive character of local names is, as might be anticipated, prominently exemplified in the appel- lations bestowed on the most striking feature in landscape —
the personal pronouns and numerals, come within this category. The analysis of words of this class enables us to speculate upon the relative epochs at which the Celtic, Romance, Sclavonic, and Teutonic families separated from the parent stock, or from each other, and also to detect what progress had been made in the arts of life at the periods when each of these separations took place. See Grimm’s Geschichte der Deutschen Sprache, pp. 9--113; Max Muller, On Comparative Mythology, in the Oxford Essays for 1856, pp. 14-26; Leo, Vorlesungen, vol. i. p. ii; Wilson, Prehistoric Annals of Scotland, p. 350; Weber, Indische Skizzen, pp. 9, 10; Gladstone, Homer, vol. i. p. 299; Pritchard, Reports of Brit. Assoc, for 1847, p. 240; Mommsen, Inhabitants of Italy, pp. 11-14; Pictet, Origines Indo~Europ. pt. i. pp. 149-530; pt. ii. pp. 739-751; Bunsen, Philosophy of Universal History, vol. i. pp. 75, 76; Mannhardt, Gotterwelt, vol. i. p. 47; Kuhn, Zur dlteste Geschichte.
22
Words and Places
mountain peaks and ranges. Thus it is easy to perceive that, in every region of the world, the loftier mountains have been designated by names which describe that natural phenomenon, which would be most certain to impress the imagination of a rude people. The names of Snowdon, Ben Nevis, Mont Blanc, the Sierra Nevada in Spain, Snafell in Iceland, the Sneeuw Bergen at the Cape of Good Hope, the Sneehatten in Norway, Sneekoppe in Bohemia, and the Weisshom, the Weissmies, and the Tete Blanche in Switzerland, as well as the more archaic or more obscure names of Lebanon, of Caucasus, of Hsemus, of the Himalaya, of Dwajalagiri, and of Djebel-es- Sheikh, are appellations descriptive, in various languages, of the characteristic snowy covering of these lofty summits.
But there are many names which conjoin historical and physical information. Thus, when we learn that the highest summit in the Isle of Man is called Snafell, we recognise at once the descriptive character of the name, and we might be satisfied with simply placing it in the foregoing list. But when we discover that the name Snafell is a true Norse word, and that it serves moreover for the name of a mountain in Norway, and of another in Iceland, we find ourselves in presence of the historical fact that the Isle of Man was, for centuries, a de- pendency of the Scandinavian Crown — Shaving been conquered and colonised by the Norwegian Vikings, who also peopled Iceland.
This is an instance of what we may call the ethnological import of names. The chief value of the science of geographical etymology consists in the aid which it is thus able to give us in the determination of obscure ethnological questions. There are many nations which have left no written records, and whose history would be a blank volume — or nearly so — ^were it not that in the places where they have sojourned they have left traces of their migrations, sufficient to enable us to reconstruct the main outline of their history. The hills, the valleys, and the rivers are, in fact, the only writing-tablets on which un- lettered nations have been able to inscribe their annals. It may be affirmed that, with hardly an exception, the great advances in ethnological knowledge which have recently taken place are due to the decipherment of the obscure and time- worn records thus conserved in local names. The Celtic, the Iberic, the Teutonic, the Scandinavian, and the Sclavonian races have thus, and for the most part, thus only, made known to us their migrations, their conquests, and their defeats.
Significancy of Local Names 23
To this subject — Etymology in its relations to Ethnology — several of the succeeding chapters will be devoted.
But we sometimes derive historical information in a still more explicit form from local names. They often preserve the memory of historic sites, and even enable us to assign approxi- mate dates to certain memorable events. Thus there is a meadow, near Stamford Bridge,^ which still goes by the name of Battle Flats. For eight centuries, this name has kept in its tenacious grasp the memory of the precise locality of the famous territorial concession which Harald, son of Godwine, made to Harald Hardrada, King of Norway, “ seven feet of English ground, or as much more as he may be taller than other men.’’ ^ And at the other extremity of the kingdom the name of the town of Battle, in Sussex, is the epitaph which marks the spot where, in less than a month, the Saxon king lost his kingdom and his life.
The names of Messina in Sicily, of Carthagena in Spain, and of Miletus in Ionia, repeat the names of the mother-cities which sent out these colonies; and the name of Tripoli reminds us that there were three cities — ^Tyre, Sidon, and Aradus — which joined in establishing the new settlement.
The name of the Philippine Islands tells us of the reign in which the Spanish galleons steered from Peru across the Southern Sea. The name of Louisiana reminds us that, in the days of the Grand Monarque, France was the rival of England in the colonisation of the Western World ; and the names of Virginia, of the Carolinas, and of Georgia give us the dates of the first foundation of England’s colonial empire, and of some of the chief successive stages in its progress. The word Londonderr}^ speaks to us of the resettlement of the desolated city of Derry by the London guilds; while the names King’s County and Queen’s County, Philipstown, and Maryborough, commemorate the fact that it was in the days of King Philip and Queen Mary that the O’Mores were exterminated, and two new counties added to the English Pale.
There are materials of yet another class which may be collected from the study of ancient names. From them we may de- cipher facts that have a bearing on the history of ancient civilisation. With regard, for example, to Saxon England, we may from local names draw many inferences as to the amount
^ Stamford Bridge was long known as Battle Bridge — Pons Belli. — Lappenberg, Anglo-Saxon Kings ^ vol. ii. p. 281.
* Saga of Harald Hardrada, in Laing’s Heimskringl^, vol. iii. p. 89.
Words and Places
24
of cultivated land^ the state of agriculture, the progress of the arts of construction, and even as to the density of the population, and its relative distribution. In the same records we may discover vestiges of various local franchises and privileges, and may investigate certain social differences which must have characterised the districts settled respectively by the Saxons and the Danes. And we may collect enchorial vestiges of the heathenism of our forefathers, and illustrate the process by which it was gradually effaced by the efforts of Christian teachers.
We thus perceive how many branches of scientific, historical, and archaeological research are capable of being elucidated by the study of names ; and it is manifest that, upon many grounds, the work of their Historical Interpretation is called for. The almost virgin soil of a rich field, which has never yet been systematically cultivated, presents itself before the labourer; and an industrious criticism, bringing into combination the resources of Geography^ of Physical Description, of Geology, of Archaeology, of Ethnology, of Philology, and of History, may hope to reach results, more or less important, in each of these departments of knowledge; or; at all events, it cannot fail to indicate, for future exploration, some of the sites where lie buried the hidden treasures of the past.
CHAPTER II
NAMES OF RECENT ORIGIN
Colonisation of America — Greenland — Leif Ericson — Columbus — Religious feeling in the Names given by the Spaniards and by the Puritans — Salem — Providence — ^The Quaker Colony — Native Indian Names — The Elizabethan worthies: Frobisher, Davis, Baffin, Hudson, Drake, and Gilbert — Adventures of Captain Smith — ^The French plantations — ^The Dutch in North and South America — Magalhaens — Spanish and Portuguese discoveries — The Dutch in the South Seas — New Zealand and New Holland — Recent Arctic discoveries.
The peopling of the Eastern Hemisphere is an event of the distant past. The names upon the map of Europe have remained there, most of them for ten, many of them for twenty, centuries. To study them is a task full of difficulties ; for they are mostly derived from obscure or unknown languages, and they have suffered more or less from the phonetic changes of so many years. But with the New World the case is different. The colonisation of America has been effected during the modem historic period, the process of name-giving is illustrated by numerous authentic documents, and the names are derived from living languages. Just as the best introduction to the study of geology is the investigation of recent formations, abounding in the remains of still existing organisms, so we may fitly commence our present task by an examination of what we ‘may call the tertiary deposits of America and Australia, which are still in process of formation; and we shall then be better prepared to explore the Wealden and other secondary formations of the Teutonic Period, and the still older primary Celtic strata — Silurian, Cambrian, and Devonian. We shall find that the study of the more recent names throws much light on those natural laws which have regulated the nomenclature of Europe: and the investigation is, moreover, full of interest, from the numerous associations with the names of the bold conquistadors and the daring seamen whose enterprise has added another continent to the known world.
By means of the names upon the map, we may trace the whole history of the successive stages by which the white men have spread themselves over the Western World. We may
25
26
Words and Places
discover the dates at which the several settlements were founded, we may assign to each of the nations of Europe its proper share in the work of colonisation, and, lastly, we may recover the names of the adventurous captains who led their little bands of daring followers to conquer the wilderness from nature, or from savage tribes.
The name of Greenland is the only one which is left to remind us of the Scandinavian settlements which were made in America during the tenth century. The discoveries of Leif, son of Eric the Red, have been forgotten, and the Norse names of Vinland (Massachusetts), Markland (Nova Scotia), Helluland it mikla (Labrador), and Litla Helluland (Newfoundland), have been superseded, and now survive only in the memory of the curious.
Without disparagement of the claims of Leif Ericson to the discovery of the New World, we may regret that the names of the city of Colombus and of the district of Columbia form the only memorials of the bold Genoese adventurer; and we may wish that the name of the entire continent had been such as to remind us, day by day, of the exploits of Christopher Columbus rather than of those of Amerigo Vespucci. Alexander von Humboldt ^ has, indeed, vindicated Vespucci from the charge of trickery or forgery which Las Casas attempted to fasten upon him ; and we must, therefore, regard the name of America as an unfortunate mistake rather than as an inglorious and successful fraud.^
The deep religious feeling of the earlier voyagers is well illustrated by the names which they bestowed upon their discoveries. The first land descried by Columbus was* the island of San Salvador. From day to day he held on, in spite of the threats of his mutinous crew, who threatened to throw the crazy visionary into the sea. With what vividness does this name of San Salvador disclose the feelings with which, on the seventieth night of the dreary voyage, the brave Genoese caught sight of what seemed to be a light gleaming on some distant shore ; how vividly does that name enable us to realise the scene when, on the next day, with a humble and grateful pride, he set foot upon that New World of which he had dreamed from his boyhood, and, having erected the symbol of the Christian faith and knelt before it, he rose from his knees and
^ Cosmos, vol. ii. note 457.
“ The error obtained currency from a work on Geography, published in the year 1507.
Names of Recent Origin 27
proclaimed, in a broken voice, that the land should henceforth bear the name of San Salvador — ^the Holy Saviour, who had preserved him through so many perils !
We cannot but reverence the romantic piety which chequers the story of the violence and avarice of the conquistadors. On the discovery of unknown shores, the first thought of those fierce soldiers was to claim the lands as new kingdoms of their Lord and Master, and to erect forthwith His symbol, the Santa Cruz, the Vera Cniz, the name of which marks upon our maps so many of the earliest settlements of the Spaniards and Portu- guese.
The name of San Sebastian, the first Spanish colony founded on the continent of South America, forms a touching memorial of the perils which beset the earlier colonists. On disembarking from the ships, seventy of the Spaniards were killed by the poisoned arrows of the Indians ; on which account the dangerous spot was put under the special protection of the martyr, who^ by reason of the circumstances of his death, might be supposed to feel a personal and peculiar sympathy with those who were exposed to the Hke sufferings.^
As in the case of many great men, there seems to have been a sort of mysticism underlying the piety of Columbus. On his third voyage he discerned three mountain-peaks rising from the waters, and supposed that three new islands had been dis- covered. On a nearer approach, it was found that the three summits formed one united land — a fact which the admiral recognised as a mysterious emblem of the Holy Trinity, and therefore bestowed upon the island the name of La Trinidad, which it still retains.
The Spaniards were devout observers of the festivals of the Church, and this circumstance often enables us to fix the precise day on which great discoveries were made. Thus Florida, with its dreary swamps, is not the ‘‘Flowery Land,^’ as it is sometimes thought to be; but its name records the fact that it was discovered by Juan Ponce de Leon on Easter Sunday — a festival which the Spaniards call Pascua Florida, from the flowers with which the churches are then decked. The island of Dominica was discovered on a Sunday — dies Dominica, Natal was discovered by Vasco de Gama on Christ-
^ So too the name of the Ladrones, or “ Robbers’ Islands,” com- memorates the losses of Magalhaen’s crew from the thievish propensities of the natives. The name Sierra Leone, The Lion’s Range, records the terrors of the Portuguese discoverers at the nightly roaring of the lions in the mountains which fringe the coast.
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Words and Places
mas Day — dies Natalis, Alfonso de Sousa founded the first Portuguese colony in the Brazils, and its name, Janeiro, recalls the fact that he landed on the Feast of St. Januarius. The town of St. Augustine, the oldest in the United States, was founded on St. Augustine’s Day by Melendez, who was sent by Philip II. of Spain on the pious mission of exterminating a feeble colony of Huguenot refugees, who were seeking, on the coast of Florida, that religious liberty which was denied them in their native land.
The islands of Ascension and St. Helena, the River St. Law- rence, and other places too numerous to mention, thus date the day of their discovery by their names.
A religious feeling equally intense with that which dictated the names bestowed by the Spanish discoverers, but very different in character, is evinced by the names which mark the sites of the earlier Puritan colonies in North America.
Salem was intended to be the earthly realisation of the New Jerusalem, where a “New Reformation,” of the sternest Cal- vinistic type, was to inaugurate a fresh era in the history of the world, and a strict discipline was to eradicate every frailty of our human nature from this City of the Saints. From the laws of the neighbouring town of Newhaven,^ as given by Hutchinson, we may gather some notion of Life in this Puritan Utopia. Among other things, it was there enacted, under severe penalties: —
“ That no one shall be a freeman unless he be converted.
“ That no one shall run on the Sabbath, or walk in bis garden.
“ That no one shall make beds, cut hair, or shave, and no woman shall kiss her children on the Sabbath.
“ That no one shall make mince-pies, or play any instrument, except the trumpet, drum, and jews’-harp.
That no food or lodging shall be given to any Quaker or other heretic.”
The laws of Massachusetts assigned the penalty of death to all Quakers, as well as to “ stubborn and rebellious sons,” and to all “ children, above sixteen, who curse or smite their natural father or mother,” and to persons guilty of idolatry, witchcraft, or blasphemy.
These laws, breathing the spirit of Christianity as understood
^ Caswall, The American Church and the American Union y p. 35. Lucas, Secularia, pp. 219, 227. Since the first edition of Words and Places was published I have received a letter from an American correspondent in which he informs me that these so-called “ Blue Laws ” are a forgery. My correspondent assigns no reasons, but I sincerely hope his statement is correct.
Names of Recent Origin 29
by the Puritan exiles for conscience’ sake, quickly bore their fruit. Roger Williams, a noble-hearted man, who, strange to say, had been chosen to be minister at Salem, dared to affirm the heresy that the doctrine of persecution for cause of con- science is most evidently and lamentably contrary to the doctrine of Christ Jesus,” and that “ no man should be bound to worship against his own consent.” For maintaining these heterodox opinions, which struck at the root of the New Eng- land system of polity, Williams had sentence of exile pronounced against him. He wandered forth into the snows of a New England winter: for fourteen weeks,” he says, he often, in
the stormy night, had neither fire nor food, and had no house but a hollow tree.” •
The savages showed him the mercy which his fellow-Christians had refused him, an Indian chief gave him food and shelter; but that wigwam in the far forest was soon pronounced to be within the jurisdiction of the Puritan colony, and the Apostle of Toleration, hunted even from the wilderness, embarked with five companions in a canoe, and landed in Rhode Island. With simple piety he called the spot where the canoe first touched the land by the name of Providence — a place which still remains the capital of Rhode Island, the state which Williams founded as a shelter for persons distressed for conscience.” ^
The name of Concord, the capital of the state of New Hamp- shire, shows that some at least of the Puritans were actuated by feelings more in harmony with the spirit of the religion they professed ; while Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love,, tells a touching tale of the unbrotherly persecutions which filled the gaols of England with 60,000 Quakers — ^persecutions from which they fled, in the hope of inaugurating a Utopian era of peace and harmony.
All readers of Pepys’ amusing Diary are familiar with the name of his colleague at the Admiralty, Sir William Penn. The funds which should have found their way into the naval chest were diverted to purposes more agreeable to the ‘‘ merry monarch” than the purchase of tar and timber; and, in consequence, the fortune which the Comptroller of the Navy bequeathed to his Quaker son was a claim on the royal purse for the sum of £16,000. The money not being forthcoming,, young Penn — who, much to the annoyance of his family, had embraced the tenets of the Quakers — obtained, in satis- faction of his claims, a large grant of forest-land in North ^ Bancroft, History of the U nited States, vol. i. pp. 276-286.
3°
Words and Places
America, and led forth a colony of Quakers to found the new colony, called, after himself, Pennsylvania.
lire name of Boston reminds us of the part of England from which the first Puritan settlers emigrated. They had, with much difficulty, escaped from the Lincolnshire coast — some of them having been apprehended on the beach for the crime of attempting to reach a country where they might wor- ship according to their consciences. Their first refuge was in Holland, from whence the Mayflower carried them to the shores of New England, and on the nth of December, 1620, landed them on a desolate spot, five hundred miles from the nearest .settlement of white men. To this spot they gave the name of Plymouth — a reminiscence of the last English land which they had seen as they passed down the Channel.^
Hoboken (an Indian word, meaning the ‘‘ smoke pipe ’’) was the name of a spot in New Jersey at which the settlers met the Indian chiefs in council, and smoked the pipe of peace, while they formed a league of amity — too soon, alas! to be broken by the massacre of Bloody Brook, where so many of the colonists were treacherously slain. Hoboken is one of the many Indian names which we find scattered over the map of the American continent, and which are frequently used to designate the great natural features of the country, the lakes, the rivers, the mountain ranges, and the chief natural territorial divisions." Such are the names of the Niagara, the Potomac, the Ottawa, the Rappa-Hannock, the Susquehanna, the Mississippi, the Missouri, the Minnesota, Canada, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Arkansas, Wisconsin, Michigan. The name of Mexico is de- rived from Mexitli, the Aztec war-god. Tlascala means ‘‘ the place of bread.” Hayti is the “ mountainous country.” The Andes take their name from the Peruvian word anta — copper. Local names are the only memorial of many once powerful tribes which have become extinct. The names of the Alleghany Range, the Mohawk Valley, Lake Huron, Lake Erie, Lake Nipis- sing, the city of Natchez, Cherokee County, the River Ottawa, and the states of Kansas, Ohio, and Illinois are all derived from the names of trilDes already extinct or rapidly becoming so. Centuries hence, the historian of the New World will point
^The Puritan emigration lasted twenty years — from 1620 to 1640. During this period, 21,000 emigrants crossed the Atlantic. The popula- tion of the six New England States is now upwards of three millions.
The rivers and mountains receive their names from the earliest races, villages and towns from later colonists. Many illustrations of the principle will be adduced in Chapter IX.
Names of Recent Origin 3 1
to these names as great ethnological landmarks : they will have, in his eyes, a value of the same kind as that which is now attached to the names of Hesse, Devonshire, The Solway, Paris, or Turin,^ The name of Virginia carries us back to the reign of the Virgin Queen, and gives us the date of the exploits of those hardy sailors who cast into the shade the deeds even of the Spanish conquistadors. Not far from the scene of one of his ruinous enterprises,^ the most chivalrous, the most adventurous, the most farsighted, and the most unfortunate of Englishmen, has recently had a tardy tribute paid to him, in the ^option, by the Legislature of North Carolina, of the name of Raleigh as the designation of the capital of the state in which Raleigh’s colony was planted. On Raleigh Island, at the entrance of Roanoke Sound, may still be discerned the traces of the fort around which the adventurers built the city of Raleigh, a place which has now vanished from the map. Of Raleigh’s other enterprises, more especially of his quixotic ascent of the Orinoco for four hundred miles in small open boats, no local name remains as a memorial.
The names of other heroes of the Elizabethan era are to be sought elsewhere. In the Northern Seas we find a record of the achievements of four brave Englishmen — Frobisher, Davis, Bafiin, and Hudson. The adventurous spirit which actuated this band of naval worthies is shown in the declaration of Martin Frobisher, who deemed the discovery of the North- West Passage “ the only thing of the world that was yet left undone by which a notable minde might be made famous and fortunate.” In command of two little barks, respectively of twenty-five and twenty tons, and accompanied by a small pinnace, Frobisher steered for the unknown seas of ice, and, undaunted by the loss of the pinnace and the mutinous defection of one of his crews, he persevered in his enterprise, and dis- covered the strait which bears his name.^
John Davis, with two ships respectively of fifty and thirty- five tons, followed up the discoveries which Frobisher had made. With a brave heart he kept up the courage of his sickly sailors, who were struck with terror at the strange sight of huge floating icebergs towering overhead, and at the fearful crash of the icefloes as they ground one against the other, and threatened ^ See Chapter IV. and Appendix A.
^ Cape Fear commemorates the narrow escape from destruction of one ot the expeditions sent out by Raleigh.
® Hackluyt, Navigations, vol. iii. pp. 29-96. Cf. Calendar of State Papers, Dom. Ser. 1577-9.
Words and Places
32
the ships with instant destruction. When, at length, the wished- for land came in sight, it was found to be so utterly barren and inhospitable that the disappointed seamen gave it the name which it still bears — Cape Desolation. But Davis persevered, and was rewarded by the discovery of an open passage leading to the North-West, to which the name of Davis’ Straits has been rightfully assigned.^
By lot and Baffin, with one small vessel, and a crew of fourteen men and two boys, eclipsed all that Davis had done, and ven- tured into unknown seas, where, for the next two hundred years, none dared to follow them. They discovered the magnificent expanse of water which is known by the name of Baffin’s Bay, and they coasted round its shores in hopes of finding some outlet towards the North or West. Three channels were dis- covered, to which they gave the names of Sir James Lancaster, Sir Thomas Smith, and Alderman Jones, by whose countenance and pecuniary assistance they had been enabled to equip the expedition.
The adventurous life and tragic fate of Henry Hudson would make an admirable subject for an historical romance. The narration is quaintly given in Purchas His Pilgrimes ; but, fortunately or unfortunately, it has not, so far as I am aware, been selected as a theme by any modem writer.^ Hudson’s first voyage was an attempt to discover the North-East Passage to India. With ten men and a boy, he had succeeded in attain- ing the coast of Spitzbergen, when the approach of winter com- pelled him to return. In a second voyage he reached Nova Zembla. The next year he traced the unknown coast-line of New England, and entered the great river which bears his name. His last expedition was rewarded by still greater discoveries than any he had hitherto effected. In a bark of fifty-five tons he attempted the North-West Passage, and, penetrating through Hudson’s Strait, he reached Hudson’s Bay, where his ship was frozen up among the icefioes. Patiently he waited for the approach of spring, although, before the ship was released, the crew had been reduced to feed on moss and frogs. After awhile, they fortunately succeeded in catching a supply of fish, and prepared to return home, with provisions for only fourteen days. Dismayed at this prospect of starvation, the crew mutinied,
^ Hackluyt, Navigations, vol. iii. pp. 98-120.
Purchas, Pilgrimes, vol. iii. pp. 567-609.
^ Mr. Ford Madox Hueffer has t^en the theme for his story. The * Half Moon a Romance of the Old World and the New, 1909. — E. R.
I Names of Recent Origin 33
j and, with the object of diminishing the number of mouths to i be fed, they treacherously seized their brave captain; and having I placed in a small boat a little meal, a musket, and an iron pot, * they cast Hudson adrift, with eight sick men, to find a grave in I the vast inland sea, the name of which is the worthy epitaph of one of the most daring of England’s seamen. The names of these four men — Frobisher, Davis, Baffin, and Hudson — the world will not willingly let die.
The naval triumphs of the Elizabethan era are also associated, in the minds of Englishmen, with the exploits of Drake and Gilbert, although they have not been fortunate enough to give their names to seas or cities. Drake’s almost fabulous adven- tures— ^his passage of the Straits of Magalhaens — ^his capture of huge treasure-ships with his one small bark — ^his voyage of 1400 miles across the Pacific, which he was the first Englishman to navigate — ^his discovery of the western coast of North America, and his successful circumnavigation of the globe, form the sub- ject of a romantic chapter in the history of maritime adventure.
But a still higher tribute of admiration is due to the brave and pious Sir Humphrey Gylberte, who, on his return from his expedition to Newfoundland, attempted to cross the Atlantic in his Frigat,” the Squirrel, a little vessel of ten tons. Near the Azores, a storm arose, in which he perished. The touching account of his death as given in Hackluyt is well known, but it can hardly be repeated too often: The Generali, sitting abaft
with a booke in his hand, cried out to us in the Hind, so oft as we did approach within hearing, ‘ We are as neere to heaven by sea as by land,’ — reiterating the same speech, well beseeming a souldier resolute in Jesus Christ, is I can testifie he was. The same Monday night, about twelve of the clocke, or not long after, the Frigat being ahead of us in the Golden Hinde, suddenly her lights were out, whereof, as in a moment, we lost the sight, and withall our watch cryed the Generali was cast away, which was too true; for in that moment the Frigat was devoured and swallowed up of the sea.” ^
Such were the gallant gentlemen and soldiers resolute in Jesus Christ ” who made the reign of Elizabeth illustrious.
The records of the progress of English colonisation during the next reign are to be sought on the banks of the James River. On either side, at the entrance of this river, are Cape Henry and Cape Charles. Cape Charles was called after ‘‘ Baby Charles,” and Cape Henry bears the name of the hopeful prince whose ^ Hackluyt, Navigations, vol. iii. p. 159.
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34
accession to the throne might probably have changed the whole course of English history. Elizabeth County, which formed McClellan’s base of operations in the late campaign, and in which stands Fortress Monroe, was so called in honour of the sister of these princes — ^the hapless Winter Queen, the mother of Prince Rupert. Smith’s Isles, near Cape Charles, and Smithfield, on the opposite side of the James River, are memorials of Captain John Smith, a man of rare genius and enterprise, to whom, even more than to Raleigh, the ultimate establishment of the English colony in Virginia is due.
Even in those days of wild adventure, Smith’s career had been such as distinguished him above all his fellow-colonists in Virginia. When almost a boy he had fought, under Leicester, j in that Dutch campaign, the incredible mismanagement of which has been so ably detailed by Mr. Motley. His mind, as he tells us, being set upon brave adventures,” he had roamed over France, Italy, and Egypt, doing a little piracy, as it would now be called, in the Levant. Coming to Hungary, he took service for the war with the Turks, against whom he devised many excellent stratagems,” and performed prodigies of valour in various single combats with Turkish champions, slaying the ‘‘ Lord Turbashaw,” also ‘‘ one Grualgo, the vowed friend of Turbashaw,” as well as “ Bonny Mulgro,” who tried to avenge the death of the other two.
After numerous adventures, for which the reader must be referred to his amusing autobiography, a general engagement took place, and Captain Smith was left for dead upon the field of battle. Here he was made prisoner, and sold into slavery at Constantinople. Being regarded with too much favour by his fair mistresse,” who “ tooke much compassion on him,” he was sent into the Crimea, where he was “ no more regarded than a beast.” Driven to madness by this usage, he killed his taskmaster, the Tymor, whose clothes he put on, and whose horse he appropriated, and thus succeeded in escaping across the steppes; and, after overcoming many perils, he at last reached a Christian land. ‘‘ Being thus satisfied with Europe and Asia,” and hearing of the “ warres in Barbarie,” he forth- with proceeded to the interior of Morocco, in search of new adventures. We next hear of him trying some conclusions at sea ” with the Spaniards ; and at last, at thirty years of age, he found himself in Virginia, at a time when a great portion of the hundred colonists had perished, and the survivors were meditat- ing the abandonment of what seemed a hopeless enterprise.
Names of Recent Origin 35
Before long, Smith’s force of character placed him at the head ot affairs, which soon began to improve under the influence of his resolute and hopeful genius. But the position of responsi- bility in which he was placed could not put a stop to the exe- cution of his adventurous projects. In an open boat he made a coasting voyage of some three thousand miles, in the course of which he discovered and explored the Potomac. On the occasion of one of these expeditions, his companions were all cut off by the Indians, and he himself, “ beset with 200 salvages,” was taken prisoner and condemned to die. Brought before the King of Pamaunkee, “ the salvages ” had fastened him to a tree, and were about to make him a target for the ex- hibition of their skill in archery, when he obtained his release by the adroit display of the great medicine of a pocket-compass. ‘‘ A bagge of gunpowder,” which had come into the possession of the salvages, “ they carefully preserved till the next spring, to plant as they did their come, because they would be ac- quainted with the nature of that seede.” Taken at length before ‘‘ Powhattan, their Emperor,” for the second time Smith had sentence of death passed upon him. “ Two great stones were brought; as many as could, layd hands on him, dragged him to them, and thereon laid his head, being ready with their clubs to beate out his braines.” At this juncture Pocahontas, the king’s dearest daughter,” a beautiful girl, the “ nonpareil of the country,” was touched with pity for the white-skinned stranger; and, “ when no intreaty could prevaile,” she rushed forward and “ got his head in her armes, and laid her owne upon his to save him from death,” and thus succeeded, at the risk of her life, in obtaining the pardon of the prisoner. Pocahontas was after- wards married to John Rolfe, ‘‘ an honest and discreet ” young Englishman, and from her some of the first families of the Old Dominion are proud to trace their descent.^
^ This account is abridged from The True Travels, Adventures, and Observations of Captain John Smith in Europe, Asia, A f riche, and America, London, 1629; The Generali Historic of Virginia, New England, and ihe Sommer Isles, London, 1627 — two most quaint and delightful works, of which a well-edited reprint would be opportune. A brief narrative of Smith’s adventures will be found in Bancroft, History of the United States, vol. i. pp. 94-112; Drake, Book of the Indians, bk. iv. pp. 7-18; and Cooley, History of Maritime and Inland Discovery, vol. ii. pp. 2 12-215. See also Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, 1614. Smith, of Virginia, bore for arms a chevron, between the three Turks’ heads, which he had cut off. He is the hero of the Blackletter Ballad in the British Museum, entitled — “ The Honor of a London Prentice; being an account of his matchless manhood and boyhood.” — Smith’s Antiquarian Ramble in the Streets of London, vol. ii. p. 133.
Words and Places
36
The state of Florida, as the name imports, was originally a Spanish colony. Louisiana, New Orleans, Mobile, and many other names, remind us that, in the reign of Louis XIV., France held firm possession of the Valley of the Mississippi, and stretched a chain of forts, by St. Louis, St. Charles, and the state of Illinois, to Fond Du Lac and Lac Superieur, the “ Upper Lake ” of the great chain of lakes, as far as Detroit, the narrow pass- age ’’ between the Lac St. Clair and Lake Erie. In Canada we are surrounded by French names. Quebec is a name transferred from Brittany,^ and Montreal is the ‘‘ Royal Mount,” so named by the Frenchman Cartier in 1535. Lake Champlain takes its name from Champlain, a bold Normand adventurer “ delighting marvellously in these enterprises,” who joined an Indian war- party, and was the first to explore the upper waters of the St. Lawrence and the Mississippi. The Habitans (as the French Canadians of the Lower Province are called) still retain the characteristics of the Normand peasantry in the time of Louis XIV. Cape Breton was discovered, by mariners from Brittany, as early as the lifetime of Columbus. The name of the state of Vermont shows that it came within the great French dominion, and the state of Maine repeats in the New World the name of one of the maritime provinces of France. But the genius of Lord Chatham wrested the empire of the New World from France ; and Fort Du Quesne, the key of the French position in the Valley I of the Ohio, under its new name of Pittsburgh, commemorates the triumphs of the great war-minister, and is now one of the largest cities in the United States. :
The state of Delaware was “ planted ” in 1610 by Lord De la Warr, under a patent granted by James I. The further progress of colonisation in this region is commemorated by the Roman | Catholic colony of Maryland, named after Henrietta Maria, i Queen of Charles I. ; and Baltimore, the capital of the state, ! takes its name from Lord Baltimore, the patentee of the new colony,^ who thus transferred to the New World the Celtic name j of the little Irish village from which he derived his title.
New Jersey, in like manner, was founded under a patent granted, in the reign of Charles II., to George Carteret, Lord Jersey; while Nova Scotia was a concession to Sir William Alexander, a Scotchman, who, with a band of his compatriots, settled there in the time of James II. Its recolonisation in
^ The etymology of Lamartiniere from Quel bee ! What a cape ! is too absurd to need refutation.
Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, 1632.
Names of Recent Origin 37
the reign of George IL is marked by the name of Halifax, given in honour of Lord Halifax, the president of the Board of Trade.
The city of Charleston, Albemarle Sound, the rivers Ashley and Cooper, and the states of North and South Carolina,^ date from the time of the Restoration; and the people are justly proud of the historical associations which attach to many of the local names. 2 Annapolis, the capital of Maryland, as well as the Rapidan and North Anna Rivers, bring us to the reign of Queen Anne ; and Georgia, the last of the thirteen colonies, dates from the reign of George II. New Inverness, in Georgia, was settled by Highlanders implicated in the rebellion of 1745. Fredericks- burg, the scene of the recent bloody repulse of the Federals, and Frederick City, in Maryland, bear the name of the weak and worthless son of George II. As has been observed by the Southern correspondent of the Times, It is safe to observe that Virginia has done more than the mother country to keep alive the memory of a prince, who lives for Englishmen only as he is gibbeted in the Memoirs of Lord Harvey.” ^
The Scandinavian colony of New Sweden has been absorbed by the states of Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey; but a few names, like Swedesboro’ and Dona, still remain as evidences of a fact now almost forgotten.
The map of the state of New York takes us back to the reign of Charles II. The King’s brother, James, Duke of York and Albany, had a grant made to him of the as yet unconquered Dutch colony of the New Netherlands, the two chief cities of which. New Amsterdam and Fort Orange, were rechristened, after the Dutch had been dispossessed, by the names of New York and Albany, from the titles of the royal patentee. The names of the Katskill Mountains, Staten Island, Brooklyn (Breukelen), Wallabout Bay, Yonker’s Island, the Haarlem River, and the villages of Flushing, Stuyvesant, and Blauvelt,^ are among the local memorials which still remind us of the Dutch dominion in North America.^
^ The name of the Carolinas seems to have been revived at this period, having been originally given at the time of the first colonisation by the Huguenots in the reign of Charles IX. of France.
* Russell, Diary North and Souths vol. i. p. 171.
® Times, Dec. 27, 1862.
* We may add the names of Kinderhook, Haverstraw, Spuyten Duyvel, Watervliet, Roosefelt, Roseboom, Rosend^e, Staatsburg, and Claverack.
* The word creek, which often appears in American river-names, appears to be a vestige of the Dutch dominion. Kreek is a common suifix in the Netherlands. Fbrstemann, Ortsnamen, p. 35.
Words and Places
38
The Dutch colony in South America has had a greater per- manence. New Amsterdam, Fredenberg, Blauwberg, and many other Dutch names in the same neighbourhood, surrounded as they are by Portuguese and Spanish names, are an exhibition of the results of intrusive colonisation, and are instructive analogues of obscure phenomena, which we shall hereafter find exhibited on the Continent of Europe.
Cape Horn, or rather Cape Hoorn, as it should properly be written, is also a vestige of the early enterprise of Holland. The name is derived from Hoorn, a village on the Zuyder Zee, which was the birthplace of Schouten,^ the first seaman who succeeded in doubling the Cape. Before the time of Schouten’s voyage, the Pacific had been entered by the Straits of Magalhaens, a passage between Tierra del Fuego and the mainland, which had been discovered by a man who, for genius, fertility of resource, and undaunted courage, deserves a place on the roll of fame beside Columbus, Cortez, Smith, and Hudson. Fernando Magal- haens was a Portuguese, engaged in the Spanish service, and was sent out to wrest from his fellow-countrymen the possession of the Moluccas, which, under the terms of the famous Papal Bull, were conceived to be included in the Spanish moiety of the world. Threading his way through the straits which bear his name, Magalhaens held on his way, in spite of the mutiny of his crews, the loss of one ship, and the desertion of another, and at last reached the Philippine Islands, where, during an attack by the natives, he fell beneath a shower of spears. Torres’ Straits bear the name of one of Magalhaens’ lieutenants.
The Philippines and the Carolines bear the names of two Spanish monarchs, Philip II. and Charles. II., under whose respective auspices the first were colonised and the second were discovered.
The Marquesas received their name in honour of the Marquis Mendoza de Canete, who, from his Viceroyalty of Peru, equipped the expedition which led to the discovery. But these were not the only results of Spanish enterprise in the Pacific. Juan Fernandez, a bold Spanish sailor, chanced upon the solitary isle which bears his name — an island which is chiefly memorable to Englishmen from having been, for four years, the abode of one of Dampier’s comrades — ^Alexander Selkirk, whose adventures suggested to De Foe the inimitable fiction of Robinson Crusoe. The Bermudas, “ the still-vexed Bermoothes,” alluded to in Shakespeare’s Tempest, were discovered, at an earlier period, ^ Esquiros, The Dutch at Home, vol. i. p, 255.
Names of Recent Origin 39
by another Spaniard, Juan Bermudez: they took the name of the Somers Islands, by which they were long known, from the shipwreck of Sir George Somers, one of the deputy-governors of Virginia.^
We cannot complete the list of Spanish explorers without a mention of the name of Orellana, which, according to some maps, is borne by the largest river of the world. There are few more romantic narratives of adventure than the history of Orellana’s voyage down the Amazons. In the company of Gonzales Pi- zarro he left Peru, and having penetrated through the trackless Andes, he came upon the head waters of a great river. The provisions brought by the explorers having at length become exhausted, their shoes and their saddles were boiled and eaten, to serve as a condiment to such roots as could be procured by digging. Meanwhile the energies of the whole party were en- gaged in the construction of a small bark, in which Orellana and fifty men committed themselves to the mighty stream, which, in seven long months, floated them down to the Atlantic, through the midst of lands utterly unknown, clad to the water’s edge with gigantic forest-trees, and peopled by savage and hostile tribes. Not content, however, with describing the real perils of the voyage, or, perhaps, half-crazed by the hardships which he had undergone, Orellana, on his return to Spain, gave the reins to his imagination, and related wild travellers’ tales concerning a nation of female warriors who had opposed his passage; and posterity has punished his untruthfulness by enshrining, in a memorial name, the story of the fabled Amazons, and letting the remembrance of the daring explorer fade away.^
We find the records of Portuguese adventure in Bahia, Per- nambuco, Braganga, and a host of other names in the Brazils, which were accidentally discovered by Cabral, who was sailing with an expedition destined for the East Indies. But the great field of Portuguese enterprise lay in the East, Avhere the names Bombay, Macao, and Formosa, attest the widespread nature of the commerce which the newly found sea-route to India threw into the hands of its discoverers. Their track is marked by such names as Saldanha Bay, Cape Agulhas, Algoa Bay, and Cape Delgado, which we find scattered along the southern coasts of Africa. The name of the Cape itself reveals the spirit of hopeful enterprise which enabled the Portuguese to achieve so
^ See Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, 1610.
* See Cooley, Hist, of Maritime and Inland Discovery, vol. ii. p. 84; Prescott, Conquest of Peru, vol. ii. pp. 320-323.
Words and Places
40
much. Bartholomew Diaz, baffled by tempests, was unable, on his first expedition, to weather the cape which he had dis- covered, and he, therefore, named it Cabo Tormentoso — the Cape of Storms — a name which John, the sanguine and enter- prising king, changed to the Cabo De Bona Esperanza, arguing the Good Hope which existed of the speedy discovery of the long-wished-for route to the realms of “ Ormus and of Ind.” ^
Tbe Eastern route found by the Portuguese was soon followed by the Dutch. The names of the Mauritius and the Orange River were bestowed by them at the time when, under the Stadt- holder Maurice, Prince of Orange, they were heroically striving against the colossal power of Spain. This death-stniggle for freedom did not prevent them pursuing their discoveries in the Eastern seas: and at the lowest point of their fortunes, when all seemed likely to be lost, it was soberly proposed to cut the dykes and leave the Spaniards the task of once more reclaiming Holland from the waves, and for themselves to embark their families and their wealth, and seek in Batavia a new eastern home for the Batavian nation.
From their colonies of Ceylon and Java, the Dutch fitted out numerous expeditions to explore the then unknown Southern Seas. Carpenter, a Dutch captain, was the first to discover the northern portion of the Australian continent. His name is | attached to the Gulf of Carpentaria; and the ‘‘ great island/’ j in the gulf bears the Dutch name of Groote Eylandt, which he i gave to it. The earliest circumnavigation of the new southern ‘ continent was achieved by means of two vessels of discovery, which were equipped by Antony Van Diemen, the Governor of Batavia, and entrusted to the command of Abel Jansen Tas- man. New Zealand and New Holland, the chief fruits of this expedition, had conferred upon them the names of two of the United Provinces ; and on the discovery of a third large island, an attachment as romantic as a Dutchman may be supposed capable of feeling, caused the rough sailor, if tradition speaks | the truth, to inscribe upon our maps the name of the beautiful daughter of the Batavian governor, Maria Van Diemen.^
We may here briefly enumerate a few remaining discoverers, whose names are found scattered ' over our maps. Dampier’s 1
^ Cooley, History of Discovery^ vol. i. p. 374.
* In consequence of an ignorant prejudice, which was supposed to deter intending colonists, the name of Van Diemen’s Land, or Demon’s Land, as it was called, has, after the lapse of two centuries, been changed to Tasmania, in honour of the sailor who preferred the fame of his mistress to his own. !
Names of Recent Origin 4J
Archipelago and Wafer Inlet bear the names of William Dampier and Lionel Wafer, the leaders of a band of West Indian bucca- neers who marched across the Isthmus of Darien (each man provided only with four cakes of bread, a fusil, a pistol, and a hanger), and who, having seized a Spanish ship, continued for a long time to be the terror of the Pacific. Kerguellen was an officer in the French service, who, in the reign of Louis XV. „ discovered the island called Kerguellen’s Land; while Jan Meyen, a Dutch whaling captain, has handed down his obscure name by his re-discovery of that snow-clad island cone which forms such a striking frontispiece to I^rd Dufferin’s amusing volume.
Behring, a Dane by birth, was sent by Peter the Great to explore the eastern shores of Asia. He crossed Siberia, and having constructed a small vessel on the coast of Kamtschatka, he discovered the strait which separates Asia from America. On his return from a second expedition, his ship w*as wrecked, and the hardy sailor, surrounded by the snows and ice of an Arctic winter, perished miserably of cold, hunger, and fatigue, on an island which bears his name.
At the instance of the British Government, Captain Van- couver succeeded in surveying 9000 miles of the unknown western coast-line of America. His name stands side by side with those of Hudson, Behring, Franklin, and Cook — the martyrs of geographical science ; for the exposure and the toil which he underwent proved fatal.
Mr. Bass, a naval surgeon, in an open whale-boat manned by a crew of six men, made a voyage of 600 miles, which resulted in the discovery of Bass’s Straits, which separate Van Diemen’s Land from the Australian continent.
The discoveries of Captain Cook are so well known that a brief reference to the names which he added to our maps may here suffice. He was despatched to observe the Transit of Venus in 1769. In this expedition he discovered the Society Islands, so named from the Royal Society, at whose instigation the expedition had been undertaken; as well as the Sandwich Islands, called after Lord Sandwich, the First Lord of the Admiralty, who had consented to send it out. In his second voyage, Captain Cook explored and named the coast of New South Wales, the New Hebrides, New Caledonia, Norfolk Island, and Sandwich Land.
We must not forget those Arctic explorers who, within the last half-century, have added so largely to our geographical know-
42 Words and Places
ledge. The names of Mackenzie, Ross, Parry, Franklin, Back, Hood, Richardson, Dease, Simpson, Crozier, Maclure, M‘Clin- tock, and Kane, perpetually remind those who examine the map of the Arctic regions, of the skill, the courage, and the endurance of the brave men who have, at last, solved the problem of three hundred years — “ the only thing of the world yet left undone by which a notable minde might be made famous.’’^ Such names as Repulse Bay, Point Tumagain, Return Reef, Point Anxiety, the Bay of Mercy, Fort Enterprise, Fort Provi- dence, Fury Beach, and Winter Harbour recall to the memory of the readers of Arctic adventure some of the most thrilling passages in those narratives ; and, at the same time, they form a melancholy record of the difficulties, the hardships, the dis- appointments, and the failures, which seemed only to braven the resolution and to nerve the courage of men whom all Englishmen are proud to be able to call their fellow-countrymen.
Mention has already been made of the Sandwich Islands and the Marquesas, as commemorating the names of statesmen who have been instrumental in furthering the progress of geographical discovery. Other names of this class — ^prime-ministers, eminent i statesmen, lords of the admiralty, and secretaries of the navy — are to be found in great profusion in the regions which have most recently been explored. We may instance the names of Mel- ville, Dundas, Melbourne, Auckland, Baring, Barrow, Croker, Bathurst, Peel, Wellington, and Sydney.^ Port Phillip, Bris- bane, the River Darling, and Macquarie take their names from j governors of the Australian Colonies, and Lake Simcoe from a governor of Canada. Boothia Felix, Grinnell Land, Smith’s Sound, and Jones’ Sound commemorate merchant-princes who | fitted out exploring expeditions from their private resources; while the names of King George, Queen Charlotte, the Prince Regent, King William, Queen Adelaide, Victoria, and Albert are scattered so lavishly over our maps as to prove a serious source of embarrassment to the young student of geography; while, at the same time, their English origin testifies to the I energy and success with which, during the last hundred years, | every comer of the globe has been explored by Englishmen. '
^ See p. 31.
* Chatham Island does not belong to this class: it bears the name of the brig Chatham^ by which it was discovered. Cf. Mt. Erebus, Fury Beach, etc. I
CHAPTER III
THE ETHNOLOGICAL VALUE OF LOCAL NAMES
Local Names are the beacon-lights of Primeval History — The method of research illustrated by American Names — Recent progress of Eth- nology— ^The Celts, Anglo-Saxons, and Northmen — Retrocession of the Sclaves — Arabic Names — Ethnology of mountain districts — The Alps.
Ethnology is the science which derives the greatest aid from geographical etymology. The names which still remain upon our maps are able to supply us with traces of the history of nations that have left us no other memorials. Egypt has bequeathed to us her pyramids^ her temples, and her tombs ; Nineveh her palaces; Judaea her people and her sacred books; Mexico her temple-mounds; Arabia her science; India her institutions; Greece her deathless literature; and Rome has left us her roads, her aqueducts, her laws, and the languages which still live on the lips of half the civilised world. But there are other nations which once played a prominent part in the world’s history, but which have bequeathed no written annals, which have constructed no monuments, whose language is dying or is dead, whose blood is becoming mingled with that of other races. The knowledge of the history and the migrations of such tribes must be recovered from the study of the names of the places which they once inhabited, but which now know , them no more — from the names of the hills which they fortified, of the rivers by which they dwelt, of the distant mountains upon which they gazed. As an eloquent writer has observed, Mountains and rivers still murmur the voices of nations long denationalised or extirpated.” ^ Language adheres to the soil when the race by which it was spoken has been swept from off the earth, or when its remnants have been driven from the plains which they once peopled into the fastnesses of the sur- rounding mountains.
It is mainly from the study of local names that we must re- construct the history of the Sclaves, the Celts, and the Basques, as well as the earlier chronicles of the Scandinavian and Teutonic races ; while from the same source we are able to throw great ^ Palgrave, Normandy and England, vol. i. p. 701. c 51; 43
Words and Places
44
light upon the more or less obscure records of the conquests and colonisations of the Phoenicians, the Greeks, the Romans, and the Arabs. In many instances, we can thus convert dubious surmises into the clearest historical certainties.
The nomenclature of America, the nature of w^hich has been indicated in the preceding chapter, may serve to explain the method by which etymological considerations become available in ethnological inquiries. Here we have a simple case, w^here we possess documentary evidence as to the facts which we might expect to be disclosed by etymological investigations, and where we can thus exhibit the method of research, and at the same time test the value of the results to which it leads.
If we examine a map of America, we find names derived from a dozen languages. We first notice a few scattered Indian names, such as the Potomac, the Rappahanock, or Niagara. These names are sparsely distributed over large areas, some of them filled almost exclusively with English names, while in others the names are mostly of Spanish or Portuguese origin — the boundary between the regions of the English and Spanish, or of the Spanish and Portuguese names being easily traceable. In Louisiana and Lower Canada we find a predominance of French names, many of them exhibiting Normand and Breton peculiarities. In New York we find, here and there, a few Dutch names, as well as patches of German names in Michigan and Brazil. We find that the Indian, Dutch, and French names have more frequently been corrupted than those derived either from the English or from the Spanish languages. In New Eng- land we find names like Salem and Providence ; in Virginia we find such names as James River, Cape Charles, and Elizabeth County. In many places the names of the Old World are repeated: we find a New Orleans, a New Brunswick, a New Hampshire, and the like.
If we were entirely destitute of any historical records of the actual course of American colonisation, it is evident that, with the aid of the map alone, we might recover many most impor- tant facts, and put together an outline, by no means to be despised, of the early history of the continent; — ^we might suc- cessfully investigate the retrocession and extinction of the Indian tribes — ^we might discover the positions in which the colonies of the several European nations were planted — v/e might show, from the character of the names, how the gradually increasing supremacy of the Anglo-American stock must have enabled it to incorporate, and overlay with a layer of English names,
Ethnological Value of Local Names 45
the colonies of other nations, such as the Spanish settlements in Florida and Texas, the Dutch colony in the neighbourhood of New York, and the French settlements on the St. Lawrence and the Mississippi. We might even go further, and attempt to discriminate between the colonies founded by Puritans and by Cavaliers ; and if we possessed a knowledge of English and French history, we might assign approximate dates for the original foundation of a large number of the several settlements. In some cases we might be able to form probable conjectures as to the causes and methods of the migration, and the condition of the early colonists. Our investigations would be much facilitated if we also possessed a full knowledge of the present circumstances of the country — if, for example, we knew that the English language now forms the universal medium of communication throughout large districts, which, nevertheless, are filled with Spanish or French names; or if we learned that in the state of New York the Indian and Dutch languages are no longer spoken, while many old families bear Dutch, but none of them Indian surnames. The study of the local names, illus- trated by the knowledge of such facts, would enable us to re- construct, in great part, the history of the country, and would prove that successive bands of immigrants may forget their mother-tongue, and abandon all distinctive national peculiari- ties, but that the names which, on their first arrival, they be- stowed upon the places of their abode, are sure to remain upon the map as a permanent record of the nature and extent of the original colonisations.
Centuries hence, when Macaulay’s New Zealander shall have succeeded in escaping from his perilous position on the broken arch of London Bridge, and has taken up his stand among certain fallen columns which mark the supposed site of the British Museum, there to lament the destruction of the literary treasures which might have enabled him to investigate the early history of the l^nd of his ancestors, he will do well to devote himself to a comparison of the local names of New Zealand with those of the United States ; and he will find it easy to prove that the two countries must have been peopled from the same source, and under circumstances not very dissimilar, and he might succeed in recovering, from a comparison and analysis of English and New Zealand names, many of those facts which he fancied had been lost for ever.
We shall hereafter investigate classes of names which present a perfect parallelism to those in America. In the case of Spain,
Words and Places
46
the Celtic, Phoenician, Arabic, and Spanish names answer in many points to the strata of Indian, Dutch, French, and English names which we find superimposed in the United States ; while an isolated name like Swedesboro’, in New Jersey, may be com- pared with that of the town of Rozas, which stands upon the Gulf of Rhoda — names which have handed down the memory of the ancient Rhodian colony in North-eastern Spain. Again, the Scandinavian names scattered over a wide area throughout England, Ireland, Scotland, France, Flanders, Iceland, and Greenland, present a parallel to the names in the English colonies of North America, Australia, and New Zealand.^ The pheno- mena of the Old World are similar to those presented in the New. In either case, from similar phenomena we may draw similar inferences.
This method of research — the application of which has been exhibited in the familiar instance of the United States, where the results attained can be compared with well-known facts — has of late years been repeatedly applied, and often with great success, to cases in which local names are the only records w^hich exist.
Wilhelm Von Humboldt was one of the pioneers in this new science of etymological ethnology. On the maps of Spain, France, and Italy he has marked out,^ by the evidence of names alone, the precise regions which, before the period of the Roman conquest, were inhabited by those Euskarian or Iberic races who are now represented by the Basques — the mountaineers of the Asturias and the Pyrenees. He has also shown that large portions of Spain were anciently Celtic, and that there was a central zone inhabited by a mixed population of Euskarians and Celts.
Archdeacon Williams,^ in like manner, has indicated the limits of the Celtic region in Northern Italy, and has pointed out detached Celtic colonies in the central portion of that penin- sula. Mone,^ Diefenbach,^ Duncker,® Brandes,’ and other industrious explorers have followed the wanderings of this
^ In Norway, as in England, a strict law of primogeniture has dispersed the cadets of a fully-peopled country over a wide geographical area. In the guards of Norway are to be found peasant proprietors, clad in homespun, who are the lineal representatives of the elder line of the chief royal and noble families of Western Europe. — See Laing, Heimskringla, vol. i. p. 109.
^ Priifung der Untersuchiingen uber die Urbewohner Hispaniens.
3 Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh^ vol. xiii.
* Celtische Forschungen zur Geschichte Mitteleuropas.
* Celtica. ® Origines Germaniccc.
’ Das Etlinographische Verhdltniss der Kelten und Germanen.
Ethnological Value of Local Names 47
ancient people through Switzerland, Germany, and France, and have shown that, in those countries, the Celtic speech still lives upon the map, though it has vanished from the glossary.
From the evidence of local names alone, Prichard ^ has demon- strated that the ancient Belgae were of Celtic, and not of Teutonic race, as had previously been supposed. So cogent is the evi- dence supplied by these names, that ethnologists are agreed in setting aside the direct testimony of such a good authority as Caesar, who asserts that the Belgae were of German blood. ^
In our own country, this method has afforded results of peculiar interest and value. It has enabled us to detect the successive tides of immigration that have flowed in; just as the ripple-marked slabs of sandstone record the tidal flow of the primeval ocean, so wave after wave of population — Gaelic, Cymric, Roman, Saxon, Anglian, Norwegian, Danish, Norman, Frisian, and Flemish — has left its mark upon the once shifting, but now indurated sands of language.
Baxter and Lhuyd,^ Chalmers,^ Whitaker,^ Skene,® Robert- son,*^ Garnett,® Davies,® Latham,^ and other writers have in- vestigated the Celtic names of our own islands. Not only have they shown that the whole of England was once Celtic, but they have made it probable that the Scottish lowlands were peopled by tribes belonging to the Welsh and not to the Gaelic stock, thus clearing up some of the disputed questions as to the affinities and distribution of the Piets and Scots.
The study of Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian names has been prosecuted by Leo,^® Ingram,^^ Kemble,^^ Worsaae,^® Ferguson, Borring,^® Depping,^® Palgrave,^^ and Lappenberg.^® They have shown how we may draw the line between the Anglian and the
^ Researches into the Physical History of Mankind ^ vol. iii.
* Latham, English Language ^ vol. i. p. 12.
® Glossarium Antiquitatum Britannicarum. Appendix by Edward Lhu^’^d.
* Caledonia. ® History of M anchester.
® History of the Highlanders,
’ Scotland under her Early Kings.
® Papers in the Proceedings and Transactions of Philological Society^ and in the Quarterly Review.
* English Language^ vol. i. pp. 363-367; Ethnology of the British Isles.
Rectitudines Singularum Personarum.
Appendix to Saxon Chronicle.
Codex Diplomaticus , vol. iii. ; Saxons in England.
The Danes and Norwegians.
The Northmen in Cumberland.
Sur la limite Meridionale de la Monarchic Danoise,
Histoire des Expeditions Maritimes des Normands.
England and Normandy. “ Anglo-Norman Kings.
Words and Places
48
Saxon kingdoms — how, from the study of the names of the villages of Lincolnshire, of Leicestershire, of Caithness, of Cumberland, of Pembrokeshire, of Iceland, and of Normandy, we may learn the almost-forgotten story of the fierce Vikings, who left the fiords of Norway and the vies of Denmark, to plunder and to conquer the coasts and kingdoms of Western Europe.
By the use of the same method, Buttmann,^ Bender,^ and Zeuss ^ have shown how we may investigate the obscure relations of the tribes of Eastern Europe, and mark the oscillations of the boundaries of the Sclaves and Germans, and even detect the alternate encroachments and retrocessions of either race. Thus in Eastern Bavaria, which is now a purely Gennan dis- trict, we find scattered Sclavonic names, more especially in the Valley of the Naab.^ From the number and character of these names we may infer that, at some remote period,^ the Sclavonians must have extended themselves westward much beyond the present frontier of Bohemia,® even as far as Darm- stadt, where the River Weschnitz marks the extreme western limit of Sclavonic occupancy. For several centuries, however, the German language has been encroaching towards the east; and the process is now going on with accelerated speed. In Bohemia, wLere almost every local name is Sclavonic, and where five-and-twenty years ago few of the elder people knew^ any language but their Bohemian speech, we find that the adults are now universally able to speak German ; and in half a century there is every likelihood that the Bohemian language will be extinct.®
Farther to the north a similar process has also taken place. Proceeding from west to east, the River Bomlitz, near Verden
^ Die Deutschen Ortsnamen.
2 Die Deutschen und die Nachbarstdmme.
® In the Aischthal, the presence of the Wends is denoted by names like Brodswinden, Ratzenwinden, Poppenwind, Reinhardswind, etc. In Wiir- temberg we find Windischgratz and jWinnenden ; in Baden, Windisch- buch; in Saxony, Wendischhayn; in Brunswick, Wenden and Wend- hausen; in Westphalia, Windheim and Wenden. — Schafarik, Slaw, Alterth. vol. i. p. 85; Bender, Deutschen Ortsnamen, p. 31; Zeuss, Die Deutschen ; Latham, Nat, of Europe, vol. ii. pp. 321, 309.
^ It is probable that, in the fifth and sixth centuries, the Sclaves took possession of the regions left vacant by the inroads of the Teutonic nations toward the west and south ; while in the seventh and eighth centuries the Germans began to recover the lost ground, and to drive the Sclaves to the eastward.
® See Latham, English Language, vol. i. p. 106; Nat, of Europe, vol. ii* P- 357; vol. i. p. 4; Germania, p. 15 1; Philological Proceedings, vol. iv. p. 187. For a list of Sclavonic names in the Valley of the Mayn, see Zeuss, Die Deutschen, pp. 649, 650.
® Ansted, Trip to Hungary, p. 79.
Ethnological Value of Local Names 49
in Hanover, is the first Sclavonic name we meet with. In Holstein, Mecklenburg, and Saxony — in East and West Prussia — in Brandenburg and Pomerania — ^we find numerous Sclavonic names,^ such as Potsdam,^ Leipsig, Lobau, or Kulm, scattered over an area which is now purely German. These names gradu- ally increase in frequency as we proceed eastward, till, at length, in Silesia, we find that the local names are all Sclavonic, although the people universally speak German, except on the eastern rim of the Silesian basin, where the ancient speech still feebly lingers.^
It will be manifest that this distribution of Sclavonic names will greatly guide us in interpreting the obscure historical notices which relate to the great struggle by which, in the ninth and tenth centuries, Mecklenburg, Pomerania, Brandenburg, Silesia, Saxony, and part of Courland were wrested by the Germans from the Sarmatians.**
The names in Eastern Europe illustrate the maxim that Ethnology must always be studied with due reference to Hydro- graphy. In rude times the rivers form the great highways. The Rhine, the Danube, and the Elbe seem to have regulated the directions of the early movements of nations. And the distribution of Sclavonic names proves that the Sclaves must, originally, have descended by the valleys of the Elbe and the Ma)m, just as the Germans descended by the valley of the Danube, where we find a wedge or elbow of German names protruding eastward into the Sclavonic region. So, again, in Hungary we find that the central plains are occupied by the Magyar shepherds from the steppes of the Volga, while the original Sclavonic population has been driven to the mountain region on either side.® Still farther to the east we find the isolated Saxon colony of Siebenbiirgen (Transylvania), where, surrounded on all sides by Sclavonic, Magyar, and Wallachian names, we find cities called Kronstadt, Hermannstadt, Klaussen- burg, Elisabethstadt, and Muhlenbach, which are inhabited
^ Zeuss, Die Deutschen und die Nachbarstdmme, p. 676 ; Bender, Orlsnamefiy p. 90.
^ Potsdam is a Germanised form of the Sclavonic Potsdupimi. Fdrste- mann, in Kuhn’s Zeitschrift, vol. i. p. 15.
^ The phenomena, in fact, are analogous to those which are exhibited as we proceed from Somersetshire, through Devonshire, to Cornwall.
* Latham, Man and his Migraiions, p. 165.
® The Sclavonic inroad into Greece is well marked by local names, such as Waligost, which extend even into the Peloponnesus. — Zeuss, Die DeuU schen, p. 634; Arndt, Europ. Spr. p. 105; Schafarik, Slawische Alter- thiimer^ vol. ii. p. 226; Keferstein, Kelt. Alterth. vol. ii. p. 436.
Words and Places
50
by a population that has been transferred from the Lower Rhine to the Lower Danube. For seven centuries this little colony has retained, unchanged, its own peculiar laws, language, institutions, and customs. Siebenbiirgen, in fact, presents a well-conserved museum of mediaeval peculiarities — a living picture of Ancient Germany, just as in Iceland we find the language and customs of our Scandinavian ancestors still subsisting, without any material change.^
We find similar phenomena in the west and south. Franche Comte, Burgundy, and Lombardy contain many disguised German names — evidences of ancient conquests by Germanic tribes, which have now lost their ancient speech, and have completely merged their nationality in that of the conquered races. ^ In Alsace, which has now become thoroughly French in feeling and in language, the German names of the villages have suffered no corruption during the short period which has elapsed since the conquest under Louis XIV.
The Arabic names which we find in Asia, in Africa, in Spain, in Sicily, in Southern Italy, in Provence, and even in some valleys of the Alps, tell us of the triumphs of the Crescent from the Indus to the Loire. In some instances, these names even disclose the manner in which the Mahometan hosts were re- cruited for the conquest of Europe from the valley of the Euphrates and the borders of the Sahara ; and we can trace the settlement of these far- travelled conquerors in special valleys of Spain or Sicily.
In mountainous regions, the etymological method of ethno- logical research is of special value, and yields results more definite than elsewhere. Among the mountains the botanist and the ethnologist meet with analogous phenomena. The lowland flora of the glacial epoch has retreated to the Grampians, the Carpathians, the Alps, and the Pyrenees;^ and in like manner we find that the hills contain the ethnological sweepings of the plains. Mountain fastnesses have always formed a provi- dential refuge for conquered tribes. The narrow valleys which penetrate into the great chains are well adapted to preserve for a time the isolation of unrelated tribes of refugees, to hinder the intermixture of race, and thus preserve from extermination or absorption those who should afterwards, at the right time,
^ Ansted, Trip to Hungary and Transylvania, pp. 30, 31.
^ See Latham’s Germania of Tacitus, Epilegomena, pp. xxxix andlv; Nationalities of Europe, vol. ii. p. 283; Lewis, On the Romance Languages, p. 18.
^ See Darwin, On the Origin of Species, pp. 365-369.
Ethnological Value of Local Names 51
blend gradually with the conquerors of the plains, and supple- ment their moral and intellectual deficiencies.^
Instances of this peculiar ethnological character of mountain districts will occur to every one. The Bengalees, though they are in geographical contact with the hill tribes of India, are yet, in blood, further removed from them than from ourselves. Strabo informs us that in his day no less than seventy languages were spoken in the Caucasus, and the number of distinct dialects is probably, at the present time, quite as large. Here, in close juxtaposition, we find archaic forms of various Georgian, Mon- golian, Persian, Semitic, and Tatarian languages, as well as anomalous forms of speech which bear no affinity to any known tongue of Asia or of Europe.^
In the Pyrenees we find the descendants of the Euskarians, who have been driven from the lowlands of France and Spain. The fastnesses of Wales and of the Scotch Highlands have enabled the Celts of our own island to maintain their ancient speech and a separate existence. An inspection of the map of the British Isles will show that The Peak of Derbyshire and the mountains of Cumberland retain a greater number of Celtic names than the adjacent districts; and the hills of Devonshire have served as a barrier to protect the Celts of Cornwall from the Anglo-Saxon conquerors.
But Switzerland is the most notable instance of the ethno- logical interest attaching to a mountainous district. In a country only twice the size of Wales, the local names ^ are derived from half a dozen separate languages, three or four of which are still spoken by the people, while in some districts almost every village preserves its separate dialect.^ Thus, in the cantons of Neufchatel, Vaud, Geneva, and in the western part of the Valais, French is the prevailing language. In the northern and central cantons, which were divided among Bur- gundian, Alemannic, and Suevic tribes, various high German
^ Goldwin Smith, Irish History and Irish Character^ P- i4-
^ Lyell, Antiquity of Man, p. 460; Max Muller, Lectures, p. 52; Knobel, Volkertafel, p. 14; Pott, Ungleichheit d. menschlicher Rassen, p. 238, apud Renan, Orig. du Langage, p. 176; Latham, Nationalities of Europe, vo\. i. p. 294.
* An admirable monograph on the local names in Canton Zurich, by Dr. Meyer, will be found in the Mittheilungen der Antiq. Gesellschaft in Zurich, vol. vi. pt. i.
* Planta, Romansch Language, p. 144; Adelung, Mithridates, vol. ii. p. 602; Lewis, Romance Languages, p. 46. Stalder, Die Landes-sprachen der Schweiz, pp. 273-418, gives specimens of thirty-five dialects of German, sixteen of French, five of Romansch, and eight of Italian, which are spoken in the several Swiss cantons.
Words and Places
52
dialects are spoken;^ while in Canton Ticino^ and in portions of the Grisons, Italian is the only language understood. The Romansch language^ spoken in the upper valley of the Rhine, is a debased Latin, with a few Celtic, German, and, possibly, some Iberic and Etruscan elements.^ In the Upper Engadine we find the Ladino, another Latin dialect,^ distinct from the Romansch; while throughout the whole of Switzerland numerous Celtic names ^ show traces of a still earlier w^ave of population, of which no other evidence remains. Not only has the region of the Alps been the immemorial abode of Celts, but there also we find indications of fragments of intrusive races — the meteoric stones of Ethnology. Thus, in the Valley of Evolena, there are traces of the former presence of a race of doubtful origin — possibly Huns or Alans, who long retained their heathenism.® In some valleys of the Grisons there are names which suggest colonies from Southern Italy; for example, Lavin, which is apparently a reproduction of Lavinium, and Ardetz, of Ardea.® Mommsen, a high authority, believes the Rhoetians of the Grisons and the Tyrol to be the descendants of an ancient Etruscan stock; while other valleys in the Valais and the
^ German Switzerland is mainly Alemannic, French Switzerland is mainly Burgundian. In Berne, however, as well as in portions of Freiburg, Lutzern, and Argau, the Burgundians have retained their German speech. Grimm, Gesch, d. Deut. Spr. p. 703.
For instance, in the ^alect of Groeden. Niebuhr, Hist. Rome, vol. i. p. 1 13. A list of Romansch words which are possibly Etruscan will be found in Tschudi, Hauptschliissel, pp. 289, 290. See also Steub’s works.
® See Lechner, Piz Languard, p. 28.
^ An analysis of the names in Canton Zurich shows the following pro- portions : —
I' 2 cities. I' 3000 homesteads.
Celtic •! 100 important rivers, moun- Alemannic -j 100 hamlets, i tains, and villages. \ 20 villages.
The other names are of modem German origin. — Meyer, Ortsnamen, p. 75.
^ Forbes, Alps, p. 289; Diefenbach, Celtica, i. p. 238.
® Witte, Alpinisches und Transalpinisches, p. 124; Planta, Romansch Language, p. 134.
’ The village-names of Tilisuna, Blisadona, Trins, Vels, Tschars, Natums, Velthurns, Schluderns, Villanders, Gufidaun, Altrans, Sistrans, Axams, and others, bear a remarkable resemblance to those Etruscan names with which we are acquainted. Compare also the names Tusis and Tuscany, Rhoetia and Rasenna. This subject is discussed at great length in two works of Ludwig Steub, Ueber die Urbewohner Rdiiens, und ihren zusam- menhang mit den Etruskern, and Zur Rdtischen Ethnologie. Cf. Tschudi, Hauptschliissel zu verschiedenen Alterthiimen, p. 290; Adelung, Mithri- dates, vol. ii. p. 598; Mommsen, Hist. Rome, vol. i. p. 108; Inhabitants of Italy, p. 56; Newman, Regal Rome, p. loi; Note by Latham in Prichard’s Eastern Origin of Celtic Nations, pp. 87-90; Niebuhr, Hist.
Ethnological Value of Local Names 53
Grisons astound us by the phenomenon of Arabic names^ for whose presence we shall presently endeavour to account.
On the Italian side of the Alps we find valleys filled with Sclavonic names, besides many isolated villages of Teutonic colonists/ who still keep themselves distinct from their Italian neighbours, and who speak a German dialect more or less corrupt. The German -speaking villages are often surrounded by a penumbra of German local names, which prove that the little settlement must formerly have occupied a more extensive area than at present.^ It is difficult to say whether these intrusive populations did, at some remote period, cross the passes and take possession of the unoccupied Italian valleys, or whether they are fragments thrown off at the time of either the Burgundian or the Lombardic invasions, and which the isolation of the mountain-valleys has prevented from becoming Italianised. In the case of the valleys of Macugnaga, Gressonay, Alagna, Sermenta, Pommat, and Sappada, we may, perhaps, incline to the former supposition; while with regard to the Sette Comuni, near Vicenza, and the Tredici Comuni, near Verona, which still retain their Lombard-German speech, the latter hypothesis may be the more probable.^
Rome, vol. i. p. 113, and vol. ii. p. 325; Dennis, Etruria, vol. i. pp. xxxiv, xlv ; Pott, Indo-Germ. Spr. p. 25 ; Planta, Romansch Language, p. 132.
^ Thus in the valley of the Tagliamento, north of Venice, we find the Sclavonic village-names, Gniva, Stolvizza, and others, and the mountains Posgost, Stolac, and Zlebac. Zeuss, Die Deutschen, p. 617; Latham, Nat. of Europe, vol. ii. p. 283; Biondelli, Studii Linguistici, p. 55.
“ In some valleys the German language has become entirely extinct. In Omavasco, north of the Lago Maggiore, this has taken place within the memory of persons now living. Latham, Nat. of Eur. vol. ii. p. 283. The upper part of the Val d’Ayas is called Canton des Allemands, though no German is now spoken there. — See Schott, Die Deutschen am Monte Rosa.
3 See Forbes, Alps, p. 330; Tour of Mont Blanc, p. 266; King, Italian Valleys, p. 449; Latham, Nationalities of Europe, vol. ii. p. 282; Germania, p. xl; Lewis, Romance Languages, p. 97; Biondelli, Studii Linguistici, pp. 47-54; Gilbert and Churchill, Dolomite Mountains, p. 379; Steub, Zur Rdtischen Ethnol. pp. 56-65. On the valleys of Macugnaga, etc., see two capital monographs by Schott, Die Deutschen am Monte Rosa, and Die Deutschen Colonien in Piedmont. The best account of the Sette and Tredici Comuni is by Schmeller, Ueher die sogenannten Cimhern auf den V enedischen Alpen. Till the beginning of the present century they formed an independent republic. Schmeller, p. 563. They speak a Platt-deutsch dialect, and call themselves Cimbri. A peasant, if asked, will tell you, “ Ich pin an Cimbro.’* Schmeller, p. 565. Eustace, Classical Tour, vol. i. p. 142, and Crichton, Scandinavia, vol. i. p. 69, accept the local tradition which makes them the remains of the Cimbrian horde which was over- thrown by Marius in the neighbourhood of Verona. See Notes and Queries,
Words and Places
54
We shall proceed to fill up some portions of the outline which has just been traced, and endeavour to decipher from the map of Europe the history of the conquests and immigrations of some of the chief races that have succeeded one another upon the stage.
vol. i. p. 176; Biondelli, Studii Linguistici, p. 53; Arndt, Eur. Spr. p. 105. J. K. [enrick?], in Journal of Education, vol. vi. p. 353, thinks they are the remains of German mercenaries.
CHAPTER IV
THE NAMES OF NATIONS
Ethnic Names are of obscure origin — Name of Britain — Many nations bear duplicate names — Deutsche and Germans — “ Barbarians ” — Welsh — Gaels — Aryans — Names of conquering Tribes — Ancient Ethnic Names conserved in those of modern cities — Ethnic Names from rulers — From geographical position — Europe — Asia — Africa — Ethno- graphic Names — “ Warriors ” — “ Mountaineers ” — “ Lowlanders ” — “ Foresters ” — “ Coastlanders ” — Greeks.
The names borne by nations and countries are naturally of prime importance in all ethnological investigations. They are not lightly changed, they are often cherished for ages as a most precious patrimony, and therefore they stretch back far into the dim Past, thus affording a clue which may enable us to dis- cover the obscure beginnings of separate national existence. But, unfortunately, few departments of etymology are beset with more difficulties, or are subject to greater uncertainties. Some of those ethnic names which have gained a wide appli- cation had at first a very restricted meaning, as in the case of Italy or Asia ; ^ others, like that of the Romans, may have arisen from special local circumstances, of which we can have only a conjectural or accidental knowledge ; ^ others, again, as in the case of Lorraine,^ may be due to causes which, if history be silent, the utmost etymological ingenuity is powerless to recover. It is only here and there, as in the case of the United States, Liberia, Ecuador, the Banda Oriental, or the Argentine Republic,^ that we find countries bearing names which have originated within the historic era, and the meaning of which is obvious. But the greater number of ethnic names are of great antiquity, and their elucidation has often to be sought in languages with which we possess only a fragmentary acquaintance. Frequently,
^ See pp. 71, 79, infra ; and Newman, Regal Rome, p. 6.
- The name of Roma is perhaps from the Groma, or fonr cross-roads at the Forum, which formed the nucleus of the city. See Donaldson, Varronianus, pp. 60, 270. Other plausible conjectures will be found in Curtius, Grundziige, vol. ii. p. 261; Mommsen, Hist, of Rome, vol. i. p. 44; and Pott, Etym. Forsch. vol. ii. p. 284.
^ See p. 69, infra.
* Ecuador is the republic of the “ Equator; ” the Banda Oriental occupies the “ eastern bank,” and the Argentine Republic the western bank of the Rio de la Plata, or River of the ” Silver.”
55
Words and Places
56
indeed, it is very difficult — sometimes impossible — to discover even the language from which any given ethnic name has been derived.
It is not needful to travel far for an illustration of the mode in which this difficulty presents itself — the name of our own country will supply us with an instance. The British people, the inhabitants of Great Britain, are, we know, mainly of Teu- tonic blood, and they speak one of the Teutonic languages. None of these, however, affords any assistance in the explana- tion of the name. We conclude, therefore, that the Teutonic colonists must have adopted an ethnic appellation belonging to the former inhabitants of the country. But the Celtic aborigines do not seem to have called themselves by the name of Britons, nor can any complete and satisfactory explanation of the name be discovered in any of the Celtic dialects. We turn next to the classic languages, for we find, if we trace the literary history of the name, that its earliest occurrence is in the pages of Greek, and afterwards of Latin writers. The word, however, is utterly foreign both to the Greek and to the Latin speech. Finally, having vainly searched through all the lan- guages spoken by the diverse races which, from time to time, have found a home upon these shores — ^having exhausted all the resources of Indo-European philology without the discovery of any available Aryan root, we turn, in despair, to the one remaining ancient language of Western Europe. We then dis- cover how great is the real historical significance of our inquiry, for. the result shows that the first chapter of the history of our island is in reality written in its name — ^we find that this name is derived from that family of languages of which the Lapp and the Basque are the sole living representatives; and hence, we reasonably infer that the earliest knowledge of the island, which was possessed by any of the civilised inhabitants of Europe, must have been derived from the Iberic mariners of Spain,^ who either in their own ships, or in those of their Punic masters, coasted along to Brittany, and thence crossed to Britain, at some dim pre-historic period. The name Br-zto- ia contains, it would seem, the Euskarian suffix etan^ which is used to signify a district or country We find this suffix
^ Niebuhr, Hist. Rome, vol. ii. p. 522 ; Arnold, Hist. Rome, vol. i. p. 489.
2 This is the explanation usually given, but it would be more correct to say that etan is the plural of an, the suffixed locative preposition, or sign of the locative case. See Boudard, Numatis. Iber. pp. 92, 93 ; and a tract by the same writer, Sur un sup,xe Iberien, in the Revue Archeologique, xi. pp. 562-567; Adelung’s Mithridates, vol. ii. p. 26. The first syllable, bro.
The Names of Nations
57
in the names of many of the districts known to or occupied by the Iberic race. It occurs in Aqu-itow-ia or Aquitaine^ in Lus-zYa;z-ia, the ancient name of Portugal, in Maur-^/aw-ia, the ‘‘ country of the Moors/’ as well as in the names of very many of the tribes of ancient Spain, such as the Cerr-^/aw-i, Aus-^to-i, Lal-^tow-i, Cos-etow-i, Yesc-ttan-i, Lac-e/^aw-i, Carp-^/a?x-i, Or- etan-\j Bast-fto«-i, Txax&etan-i, Suess-^/aw-i, Ed-^to-i, and others.
This illustration not only indicates the value of the results which may accrue from the investigation of ethnic names, but it will also serve to show how difficult it may often be to deter- mine even the language from which the explanation must be sought.
In attempting to lay down general principles to guide us in our investigations, we have in the first place to deal with the re- markable phenomenon — an instance of which has just presented itself — that the greater number of ethnic names are only to be explained from languages which are not spoken by the people to whom the name applies. Most nations have, in fact, two, or even a great number of appellations.^ One name, by which the nation calls itself, is used only within the limits of the country itself; the other, or cosmopolitan name, is that by which it is known to neighbouring tribes.
Thus, the people of England call themselves the English, while the Welsh, the Bretons, the Gaels of Scotland, the Irish, and the Manxmen, respectively, call us Saeson, Saoz, Sasun- naich, and Sagsonach.^ The natives of Wales do not call them- selves the Welsh, but the Cymry. The people to the east of the Rhine call themselves Deutsche, the French call them Allemands, we call them Germans, the Sclavonians call them Niemiec, the Magyars call them Schwabe, the Fins call them Saksalainen, the Gipsies call them Ssasso.^ The people whom we call the
hri, or hrit^ is possibly Iberic, or more probably it may be a Celtic gloss (Brezonec, hro, a country, which appears in the name of the Allo-fcro-ges), to which the Iberic etan was appended. Humboldt, Prufung der Unter- suchungen, pp. 62, 63, 143; Prichard, Researches^ vol. hi. p. 28; Philolog. Transactions^ vol. i. p. 176; Pott, Etymol. Forschung. vol. ii. pp. 42, 582; Renan, Lang. Semit. p. 203; Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Ron^an Geogr. s. v. Britannicae Insulae, vol. i. p. 434. Cf. Diefenbach, Celtica, ii. PP- 59-63; De Belloguet, Ethnog. vol. i. p. 251.
^ See Mahn, Nam. Preuss. pp. 4, 8; Verstegan, Restitution, p. 46.
^ See Grimm, Geschichte der Deut. Sprache, vol. ii. p. 658; Souvestre, Derniers Britons, vol. i. p. 219.
^ This name affords a curious piece of evidence as to the road by which the gipsies entered Europe. It would seem that the first German people which became known to them must have been the Saxon colony in Tran-
Words and Places
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Dutch call themselves Nederlanders, while the Germans call them Hollanders. The Lapps call themselves Sabme, the Fins call themselves Quains. Those whom we call Bohemians call themselves Czechs. The Germans call the Sclavonians, Wends, but no Sclavonian knows himself by this name.^
The origin of these double names is often to be explained by means of a very simple consideration. Among kindred tribes, in a rude state of civilisation, the conception of national unity is of late growth. But it would be natural for all those who w^ere able to make themselves mutually intelligible, to call themselves collectively ‘‘ The Speakers,” or ‘‘ The People,” while they would call those neighbouring races, whose language they could not understand, by some word meaning in their own language ‘'The Jabberers,” or “The Strangers.” ^
A very large number of ethnic names can be thus explained.
The Sclavonians call themselves ^ either Slowjane, “ the intelligible men,” or else Srb, which means “ Kinsmen,” while the Germans call them Wends, which means “ Wanderers,” or “ Strangers.”
The Basques call themselves the Euscaldunac,^ “ Those who have speech.” The Leleges are “ The Speakers,” ^ the Sabaeans are the “ Men,” and the name of Sheba or Seba is referable to the same root.® All the Sclavonic nations call the Germans Niemiec,"^ “ the dumb men.” The earliest name by which the
sylvania. See Pott, Die Zigeuner in Europa und Asien, vol. i. p. 53. Another indication that the gipsies immigrated by the valley of the Danube is the name Romani, by which they call themselves. This is the enchorial appellation of the Wallachians, among whom, therefore, it would appear that the gipsies must have been domiciled. See, however, Pott, Indo- Germ. Sprach. p. 42; Adelung, Mithridates, vol. i. p. 237.
^ Adelung, Mithridates, vol. ii. p. 655.
2 See a paper by J. K. [enrick]. On the Names of the Ante-H ellenic Inhabitants of Greece, in the Philolog. Museum, vol. i. pp. 609-627; Arndt, Eur. Spr. pp. 251, 303; Strinnholm, Wikingzuge, p. 284; Renan, Origine du Langage, p. 180.
® Schafarik, Slawische Alterthiimer, vol. i. p. 180; vol. ii. p. 42; Arndt, Eur. Spr. p. 03 ; Zeuss, Deutschen, p. 68 ; Pott, Etym. Forsch. vol. ii. p. 521 ; Indo-Germ. Spr. p. 107; Adelung, Directorio fiir Sud-Sach. Spr. quoted in Mithridates, vol. ii. p. 612.
* From euscara, speech; dunac, those who have. Mahn, Namen Preuss. p. 9; Adelung, Mithridates, vol. ii. p. 12; Humboldt, Priifung, p. 57.
® Philological Museum, vol. i. p. 616.
® The Getes or Goths are, perhaps, the “ kinsmen.” Pictet, Orig. Indo-Eur. pt. i. p. 84. The names of the Achaeans, the SacaB, and the Saxons may be of kindred meaning. See Gladstone, Homer, vol. i. p. 558. Gliick thinks the Cymry are the “ people.” Kelt. Namen, p. 26. The Samojedes call themselves Chasowo, the “ men.” Muller, Ugr. Volks. vol. i. p. 313; Arndt, Eur. Spr. pp. 247, 326.
7 Strictly speaking, they are called Niemiec by the Poles, Nemec by the Bohemians and Bulgarians, Njemc by the Lusatians, and Njemetz by the
The Names of Nations
59
Germans designated themselves seems to have been Tungri/ “ Those who have tongues/’ the “ Speakers.” This name was succeeded by the term Deutsche/ “ the People/’ “ the Nation/’ a name which still holds its ground. We have borrowed this national appellation of the Germans, but curiously enough we have limited its use to that portion of the Teutonic race on which the Germans themselves have bestowed another name.^
But while the Germans call themselves The People/’ the name given to them by the French means ‘‘ The Foreigners.” The French word Allemand is modernised from the name of the Alemanni, the ancient frontier tribe between Germania and Gaul. The Alemanni seem to have been a mixed race — partly Celtic, partly Teutonic, in blood. The name is itself Teutonic, and probably means ‘‘ Other Men ” or Foreigners,” and thus, curiously enough, the French name for the whole German people has been derived from a tribe whose very name indicates that its claims to Teutonic blood were disowned by the rest of the German tribes.^
Russians. Grimm, Gesch. der Deut. Spy. p. 780; Leo, in Kuhn’s Zeitschrift^ vol. ii. p. 258; Max Muller, Lectures, p. 83; Pott, Etym. Forsch. vol. ii. p. 521; Schafarik, Slaw. Alt. vol. i. p. 443; Zeuss, Deutschen, p. 68. The Gipsies call the Lithuanians, Lalerri, “ The dumb.” Pott, art. Indo~ Germanischer Sprachstamm, in Ersch und Gruber, p. 44.
^ Tacitus, Germania, cap. 2 : Grimm, Gesch. der Deut. Spr. p. 788 ; Donaldson, English Ethnog. p. 38; Mahn, Namen Preuss. p. 9. The Quadi are the speakers. Cf. the Sanskrit wad, to speak, and the Anglo- Saxon cwede, and Welsh chwed, speech. So the Jazyges derived their name from the Sclavonic word jazik, the tongue.
2 The form in which this name first appears suggested to Von Hammer the possibility that it might have been formed by the conjunction of the definite article and the root of the German word Leute, people — the Roman Iceti. This Pott rightly pronounces to be “ vollig unhaltbar,” Etym. Forsch. vol. ii. p. 518. Dr. Donaldson derives the name of the Letts, Lithuanians, and even of the Latins from the same root. Donaldson, Varronianus, p. 62. See, however, p. 77, infra. On the etymology of the word Deutsche, see Grimm, Gesch. der Deut. Spr. pp. 789, seq. ; Leo, in Kuhn’s Zeitschrift, vol. ii. pp. 255-257: Leo, Vorlesungen, vol. i. p. 192; Leo, Rectitudines , p. 137; Diefenbach, Vergleich. Worterh. vol. ii. pp. 705-708; Zeuss, Die Deutschen, pp. 63, 64; Latham, English Language, vol. i. pp. 289-297; Muller, Marken, pp. 218-230; Pott, Etym. Forsch. vol. ii. p. 521; Indo- Germ. Spr. p. 95 ; Bergmann, Les Getes, pp. 74, 75.
^ It seems to have been only in the seventeenth century that the applica- tion of the word Dutch was restricted to the Low Germans. See Arch- bishop Trench, Glossary, p. 65.
^ The al in Alemanni is probably the al in alius and A /satia, or the el in else and E/sass, not the al in all. Thus the Alemanni are the “ other men,” not the “ all men ” or “ mixed men,” as is usually supposed. Compare the al in Allobroges. Latham, Germania, Epileg. p. liii; Pott, Etymolog. Forsch. vol. ii. pp. 523-526; Zeuss, Die Deutschen, p. 318; Forstemann, Ortsnamen, p. 132; Menage, Origines, pp. 27, 31; Diefen- bach, Celtica, i. p. 17; Orig. Eur. p. 224; Gliick, Kelt. Namen, p. 26;
Words and Places
,6o
The English name for the same nation has been adopted from the Latin term, Germania. It must have been from the Celts of Gaul that the Romans obtained this word, which seems foreign to all the Teutonic languages. The etymology has been fiercely battled over; the most reasonable derivation is, perhaps, that suggested by Professor Leo, from the Gaelic gairmean, one who cries out,^ and the name either alludes to the fierce warcry of the Teutonic hordes, or more probably it expresses the wonder with which the Celts of Gaul listened to the unintelligible clash of the harsh German gutturals.
The Russians call the contiguous Ugrian tribes by the name Tschudes, a Slavonic word which means Strangers ’’ or “ Bar- barians.”^ The Philistines are, probably, the '‘Strangers,”^ and if this be the true meaning of the name, it strengthens the supposition that this warlike people arrived in Palestine by sea, probably from Crete,^ during the anarchic period which suc- ceeded to the Israelitish conquest under Joshua. The names of the African and Asiatic Kaffirs, of the Perizzites, of the lonians,^ and of the Flemings are also nearly identical in mean- ing with those of the Philistines, Allemands, and Tschudes.^ The word Barbarian was applied by the Egyptians, and after- wards by the Greeks and Romans, to all who did not speak their
Smith, Diet, of Geography , art. Germania; Latham, Nationalities of Europe^ vol. ii. p. 322; Leo, Vorlesungen, vol. i. p. 245; Muller, Marken, pp. 213, 216; Bosworth, Origin, p. 120.
^ See Leo, in Haupt’s Zeitschrift, vol. v. p. 514; Smith, Diction, of Geogr. vol. i. p. 993; Grimm, Gesch. der Deut. Spr. pp. 785-788; Gladstone, Homer, vol. i. p. 554; Latham, English Language, vol. i. pp. 286-289; Bosworth, Origin, p. 12; Bergmann, Getes, pp. 76-79; Mahn, Nam. Preuss. p. i; Forbiger, Alt. Geogr. vol. hi. pp. 314, 315; Keferstein, Kelt. Alt. vol. i. pp. xxii, 293; vol. ii. p. 366; Radlof, Neue Untersuch. pp. 241-255; Arndt, Eur. Spr. p. 114. Dr. Latham refers the word German to the Turkish Kerman, a castle! Nat. of Europe, vol. ii. p. 215.
“ Prichard, Researches, yo\. iii. p. 273; Muller, Marken des Vaterl. vol. i. p. 219; Latham, Nat. of Europe, vol. i. p. 161; Arndt, Eur. Spr. p. 323.
® Knobel, Volkertafel, p. 218; Stanley, Sinai and Palest, p. 256; Movers, Phonizien, in Ersch imd Gruber, p. 327.
I am inclined to regard this emigration from Crete as a result of the Dorian conquest of that island. The two events seem to have been synchronous, or nearly so. Compare Bochart, vol. hi. p. 422, with Muller’s Dorians, vol. i. p. 494; Hoeck, Kreta, vol. ii. pp. 16, 368, 417, seq. ; Stanley, Jewish Church, p. 287; Movers, Die Phonizier, part i. pp. 4, 27; and part u. vol. ii. p. 254; Renan, Lang. Semit. p. 54; Ewald, Volk. Isr. vol. i. p. 292.
® See p. 78, infra.
® Pott, Etymol. Forschungen, vol. ii. p. 527; Renan, Langues Semitiques, pt. i. pp. 30, no; Muller, Marken, vol. i. pp. 159, 210; Knobel, Volker- tafel, pp. 169, 177; Movers, Phonizier, vol. ii. pt. i. p. 12; Phonizien, in Ersch und Gruber, p. 328. Flemd, the root of Fleming, means fugitive. De Smet, Noms, p. 10.
The Names of Nations
6i
own language.^ The root harhar may be traced to the Sanskrit varvara, a foreigner/’ or ‘‘ one who speaks confusedly/’ and, according to the opinion of the best scholars, it is undoubtedly onomatopoeian.^ So also in the case of the Hott-en-tots we find a name which is supposed to have been given by the Dutch in imitation of the characteristic click of the Hottentot language, which sounds like a repetition of the sounds hot and tot.^
Few Ethnic names are more interesting than that of the Welsh. The root enters into a very large number of the Ethnic names of Europe, and is, perhaps, ultimately onomatopoeian. It has been referred to the Sanskrit mlech, .which denotes a person who talks indistinctly” — ''a jabberer.”^ The root appears in German, in the form wal, which means anything that is foreign ” or ‘‘ strange.” Hence we obtain the Ger- man words waller a stranger or pilgrim, and wallen, to wander, or to move about. A walnut is the foreign nut,” and in Ger- man a turkey is called Wdlsche hahn, the foreign fowl,” and a French bean is Wdlsche bohne, the “ foreign bean.” All nations of Teutonic blood have called the bordering tribes by the name of Wdlsche, that is, Welshmen, or “ foreigners.” We trace this name around the whole circuit of the region of Teutonic occu- pancy. W dlschland, the German name of Italy, has occasioned certain incomprehensible historical statements relating to Wales, in a recent translation of a German work on mediaeval history. The Bernese Oberlander calls the French-speaking district to the
^ Holzapfel, in Hofer’s Zeitschrift^ vol. iv. p. 240; Kenrick, Ancient Egypt, vol. ii. p. 248.
Pictet, Origines Indo-Europeennes, pt. i. pp. 57, 55 ; Curtins, Grundzuge der Griech. Etym. vol. i. p. 255; Weber, Indische Skizzen, p. 9; Renan, Langues Semitiques, pt. i. p. 35; Orig. du Lang, p. 178; Lassen, Ind. Alt, vol. i. p. 855; Muller, Marken, p. 185; Philolog, Museum, vol. i. p. 61 1; Max Muller, in Kuhn’s Zeitschrift, vol. v. pp. 141, 142.
^ Farrar, Origin of Language, p. 76. Compare the onomatopoeian name of the Zamzummin, the Aborigines of Palestine. Renan, Lang, Sem. p. 35; Orig, du Lang. p. 117.
* The Sanskrit m often becomes w in Gothic ; thus, from mlai, to fade, we have vlacian, to flag, welken, to wither, and the name of the soft mollusk called a whelk. According to this phonetic law, from the Sanskrit mlich we obtain the German wlack, walach, and Walch, See an Essay on Walken und Deutsche, by Professor Leo, in Kuhn’s Zeitschrift, vol. ii. pp. 252-255 ; Pictet, Orig, Indo-Euro, pt. i. p. 57; Renan, Lang, Semii. pt. i. p. 35; Orig, du Lang, pp. 178, 179; Lassen, Ind, Alt, vol. i. p. 855; Leo, Vorle- sungen, vol. i. p. 43.
^ The word waller, a pilgrim, no longer survives in English except as a surname; but we retain the derivative, wallet, a pilgrim s equipage. It may be noted that perigrinare and pilgrim are filially connected in the same way as wallen and waller. With wallen, to wander, are connected the words to walk, and to valze or waltz. Diefenbach, Vergl, Worterh, vol. i. pp. 189, 181,
62
Words and Places
south of him by the name of Canton Wallis, or Wales. Wallen- stadt and the Wallensee are on the frontier of the Romansch district of the Qhm-walcheny or men of the Grisons.^ The Sclaves and Germans called the Bulgarians Wlochi or Wolochi,^ and the district which they occupied Wallachia; and the Celts of Flanders, and of the Isle of Walcheren, were called Walloons ^ by their Teutonic neighbours. North-western France is called Valland in the Sagas,^ and in the Saxon Chronicle Wealand denotes the Celtic district of Armorica. The Anglo-Saxons called their Celtic neighbours the Welsh, and the country by the name of Wales.® Cornwall was formerly written Comwales, the country inhabited by the Welsh of the Horn. The chro- niclers uniformly speak of North-Wales and Com-Wales. In the charters of the Scoto-Saxon kings the Celtic Piets of Strath Clyde are called Walenses.
Entangled with this root wal we have the root gal. The Teutonic w and the Celtic and Romance g are convertible letters. Thus the French Gualtier and Guillaume are the same as the English Walter and William. So also guerre and war, garde and warde, guise and wise, guile and wile, gaif and waif, gaude and woad, gaufre and wafer, garenne and warren, gault and weald, guarantee and warranty, are severally the French and English forms of the same words.® By a similar change the root wal is transformed to gal. The Prince of Wales is called in French le Prince de Galles,” Wales is the pays de Galles,’' and Cornwall is Cornuailles, a name which was also given to the opposite peninsula of Brittany. Calais was anciently written indifferently Galeys or Waleys; and the name, as will be shown elsewhere, most appropriately indicates the existence of the remnant of a Celtic people surrounded by a cordon of Teutonic settlers.
This convertibility of the roots gal and wal is a source of
^ They are called Walisenses in the Chronicles. Schott, Deut. Col, p. 206.
2 Compare the Polish Wloch, an Italian, and the Slowenian Vlah, a Wal- lachian. From the same Sanskrit root we have the name of the Beloochs or Welsh of India. Pott, Indo-Germ. Spr. p. 48; Adelung, Mithridates, vol. ii. p. 641 ; Leo, in Kuhn’s Zeitschrift, vol. ii. p. 255.
® The name of the Belgae, a Cymric tribe, seems to have been given them by the Gaels, whom they displaced. Cf. the Erse, Fir-bolg, “ intruding men.”
* Laing, Heimskringla, vol. i. p. 293.
® Strictly speaking, Wales is a corruption of Wealhas, the plural of wealh, a Welshman or foreigner.
® Cf. Philolog. Proceed, vol. i. p. 108; Knapp, English Roots, p. 8; Verstegan, Restitution, pp. 166, 363; Max Muller, Lectures, 2nd series, p. 265.
The Names of Nations
63
much confusion and difficulty; for it appears probable that gal may also be an independent Celtic root/ entirely unconnected with the Teutonic wal; for while the Welsh of Wales or Italy never called themselves by this name, it appears to have been used as a national appellation by the Gaels of Caledonia ^ and the Gauls of GaZ/ia. GaZway, DonegaZ, GaZZoway, and At gyle are all Gaelic districts ; and Goello is one of the most thoroughly Celtic portions of Brittany. The inhabitants of GaZlicia and PortugaZ possess more Celtic blood than those who inhabit any other portion of the Peninsula. The Austrian province of Galitz or GaZicia is now Sclavonic, and the name, as well as that of Wallachia, is probably to be referred to the German root wal, foreign; though it is far from impossible that one or both of these names may indicate settlements of the fragments of the Gaelic horde which in the third century before Christ pillaged Rome and Delphi, and finally, crossing into Asia, settled in and gave a name to that district of GaZatia, whose inhabitants, even in the time of St. Paul, retained so many characteristic features of their Celtic origin.^
So interlaced are these primeval roots that it is almost hope- less to attempt to disentangle them.**
^ No satisfactory explanation from Celtic sources has, I believe, been offered. Possibly it may mean the “ west.” See Mone, Celtische For- schungen, p. 326. Pott derives it from gwdl^ the “ cultivated country.” Etym. Forsch. vol. ii. p. 531. Zeuss thinks it means the ” warriors.” Die Deutschen, p. 65. Dr. Meyer prefers the cognate signification of ” clans- men.” Report, Brit. Assoc, for 1847, p. 301; Bunsen, Phil, of Univ. Hist. vol. i. p. 145. Celt is of course only the Greek form of gael or gallus.
^ This word possibly contains the root gael. If so, the Caledonians would be the Gaels of the duns or hills. The usual etymology is from coildooine, the ” men of the woods.” See Diefenbach, Celtica, ii. part i. p. 14; Cambro-Briton, vol. i. pp. 48, 373; vol. iii. pp. 397, 399; Thierry, Hist. Gaul. vol. i. pp. xxix, xxxv; Chalmers, Caledonia, vol. i. p. 200.
^ Galata, near Constantinople, is regarded by Diefenbach as a vestige of the passage of the Galatian horde. Celtica, ii. part i. p. 7. It seems more probable that this name is Semitic, and should be classed with Kelat in Beloochistan, Alcala in Spain, and Calata in Sicily. See Chapter VI.
* On the roots gal and wal, see Zeuss, Die Deutschen und die Nach- barstdmme, pp. 66, 576; Diefenbach, Celtica, ii. part ii. pp. 127, 128; Diefenbach, Vergleich. Worterb. vol. i. pp. 180, 181; Guest, on Gentile Names, in Philolog. Proc. vol. i. p. 105 ; Muller, Die Marken des Vaterl. vol. i. pp. 194-203; Prichard, Eastern Origin of the Celtic Nations, pp. 104-110; Latham, English Language, vol. i. p. cv; Latham, Germania, PP- 83, 98; Nat. of Europe, vol. ii. pp. 192, 387; Conybeare and Howson, Life of St. Paul, voL i. p. 284; Arnold, Hist, of Rome, vol. i. p. 520; Yonge, Christian Names, vol. ii. p. 9; Chamock, Local Etymol. p. 291; Basil Jones, in Archceologia Cambrensis, 3rd series, vol. iv. pp. 127-132; Lord Lindsay, Progression by Antagonism, p. 62; Rawhnson, Herodotus, vol. iii. p. 190; Verstegan, Restitution, pp. 46, 166, 167; Pott, Etym. Forsch. vol. ii. p. 529; Indo-Germ. Spr. p. 91; Saturday Review, April II, 1863; Arndt, Eur. Spr. p. 253; Schafarik, Slaw. Alt. vol. i. p. 377;
Words and Places
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Another root which is very frequently found in the names of nations is at. This ancient word^ which enters very extensively into the vocabularies of all the Indo-Germanic races, seems primarily to have referred to the occupation of agriculture. The verb used to express the operation of ploughing is in Greek a/ooo>, in Latin aro, in Gothic arjan, in Polish orac, in old High German aran, in Irish araim, and in Old English ear. Thus w^e read in our version of the Bible, “ The oxen . . . that ear the ground shall eat clean provender.” ^ A plough is aporpov in Greek, aratrum in Latin, ardr in Norse, and arad in Welsh; and the English harrow was originally a rude instrument of the same kind. The Greek apovpo.^ the Latin arvum, and the Polish orsicz mean a field, or arable ground. Aroma was the aromatic smell of freshly ploughed land ; while apros and harvest reward the ploughman’s labour. The Sanskrit xra, the Greek €/oa, the Gothic a/rtha, and their English representative, earthy is that which is earod or ploughed.^
The Sanskrit word arya means an agriculturist, a possessor of land, or a householder generally; hence it came to denote
Bp. Thirlwall, in Philolog. Trans, for i86o-i,pp. 199-203; and Holzapfel, in Hofer’s Zeitschrift^ vol. iv. p. 240, who quotes a work which I have not been able to procure — Massmann, Deutsch und Welsch. Miinchen, 1843. Niebuhr, in his Lectures on Ethnology and Geography, vol. ii. p. 308, holds the untenable opinion that the Celtic national appellation is the root of the German wal, and that the Germans took the name of some contiguous Gaelic tribe as a general term for foreigner. See p. 61, supra.
^ Isaiah xxx. 24. So the two great operations of ploughing and reaping are called “ earing and harvest.” Gen. xlv. 6; Ex. xxxiv. 21.
2 Scores of related words might be collected from the Romance, Celtic, Sclavonic, and Gothic languages. Tilled land being the chief kind of property, we have the Gothic arhi, an inheritance. Since ploughing was the chief earnest occupation practised at an early stage of civilisation, the root comes to take the general signification of any kind of work. Hence the Greek ^pyov, the Latin ars, the German arbeit, the English errand; all of which deserve earnings and earnest money. It would not be difi&cult to trace the connection of the Greek ip-er/j^bs, rpt-ifip’rjs and irjr-Tjp-eTrjs, the Latin remus, the English oar, the Sanskrit aritra, a ship, as well as of «rbs and orbis. On the meaning and ramifications of the root ar, see Diefen- bach, Vergleich. Worterb. vol. i. pp. 65, 70; Diefenbach, Celtica, i. pp. ii- 13; Grimm, Gesch. der Deut. Spr. vol. i. pp. 54, 55, 68; Kuhn, Zur dlteste Gesch. pp. 12, 13; Pictet, Origines Indo-Europ. part ii. pp. 28-31, 67, 75, 78, 88, 123, 183-185; Curtius, Grundzuge der Griech. Etym. vol. i. pp. 306-308; Mchard, Rep. Brit. Assoc, for 1847, p. 242; Lassen, Ind. Alt. vol. i. pp. 5-8; Pott, Ueber alt-persische Eigennamen in the Zeitschrift der Morgenl. Gesellschaft, vol. xiii. p. 374; Church of England Quarterly, No. 73, p. 139; Mommsen, Inhabitants of Italy, pp. 16, 17; Renan, Larig. Semit. p. 14; Pott, Indo-Germ. Sprach. p. 46; Max Miiller, Lectures on Science of Language, pp. 237-257; Arndt, £wr. Spr. p. 158; Phil. Trans. for 1857, p. 55; Edinburgh Review, vol. xciv. pp. 315, 316; Zeitschrift d, Morgenl. Gesellschaft, vol. iii. p. 284.
The Names of Nations
65
any one belonging to the dominant race ^ — the aristocracy of landowners — as distinguished from the subject tribes; and at length it began to be used as an ethnic designation, corresponding to some extent with the word deutsch, as used by the Germans.^
The name of this conquering Aryan race, which has gone forth to till the earth and to subdue it, is probably to be found in the names of Iran,^ Herat, Aral, Armenia, and, perhaps, of Ib-er-ia, Ireland, and Erin. In languages which belong to the Teutonic branch of the Aryan stock, we find the root in the form ware,^ inhabitants. Burghers are those who inhabit towns, and a skipper is one who lives in a ship, as may be seen by tracing the words back to the Anglo-Saxon burhvare, citizens, and the old Norse skipveri, a sailor.^ The word ware enters into the names of a great number of German tribes. It is Latinised into the forms uari, oari, and bari ; and the w is some- times changed into a g, in accordance with a phonetic law' which has been already illustrated. Among the peoples of Central Europe are found the lng-uari-\, the Rip-z^an-i, the Chas-z^an-i, the Chatt-zzarz-i, the Att-z^arz-i, the Angri-z;an-i, and the Ansi- bari-\. The name of the Boio-an-i is preserved in the modern name of Ba-vari-a, the land of the Boii. The Bulg-ari-ans were the men from the Bolg, or Volga, on the banks of which river there is another, or Great Bulgaria.® King Alfred speaks of the Moravians under the name Marz;ar^?, the dwellers on the River Mams or Morava.*^ Hun-garz-a, or Hungary, is the land formerly
^ The profession of arms being engrossed by the ruling race has caused the root, if indeed it be the same, to enter into a number of military terms — army, armour, arms, harness, hero, Curtius and Pictet, however,
think these words are of independent origin.
^ Leo, in Kuhn’s Zeitschrift, vol. ii. p. 257.
3 In the cuneiform inscriptions the Medes and Persians claim proudly to be Aryans, and Darius styles himself an Arya of the Aryans. The Ossetes in the Caucasus call themselves Iron. The name German may perhaps be referred to this root. Compare the names Ar-iovistus, Ar- minius, Her-mann.
^ On the root ware, see Zeuss, Die Deutschen, p. 367; Herkunft der Baiern,^^. 5-11; Forstemann, Offcwaw^n, pp. 184, 197; Gtimm, Gesch. der Deut. Spr. p. 781; Mone, Celt. Forsch. p. 245; Muller, Marken des Vaterlandes, vol. i. p. 108; Philological Proceedings , vol. i. p. 10; Schafarik. Slaw. Alt. vol. i. p. 367. Compare the Sanskrit vira, the Latin vir, the Celtic gwr and fir, the Gothic vairs, and the Spanish varon, all which denote a man. From the low Latin, baro, a male, comes baron, and perhaps the Scotch bairn. Pictet, Or. Indo-Euro. part ii. p. 196; Diez, Gram. Rom. Spr. vol. i. p. 26; Gliick, Kelt. Namen, p. 100.
® Grimm, Gesch. der Deut. Spr. p. 781; Muller, Marken, vol. i. p. 192. The Prussian Iwcidwehr is the levy en masse of the whole population, and not the landguard, as is commonly supposed.
® Adelung, Mithridates, vol. ii. p. 641 ; Prichard, Researches, vol. iv. P-32. ’ Zeuss, Die Deutschen, p. 639.
66
Words and Places
peopled by the Huns; and the name survives, though the Huns have been long dispossessed by Magyars and Sclavonians. Wo-f-cester is a corruption of Hwic-7«;ara-ceaster, the castle of the inhabitants of the country of the Huiccii. The men of Kent were the Cdint-ware ; and though this term is obsolete, it survives in the name of their chief town, Cant-ze;ara-byrig, or Cant-^r-bury, “ the burgh of the men of the headland/’ while the ordinary signature of the primate. Cant-war,^ exhibits the Saxon root ware in a prominent form. Car-isbrook, in the Isle of Wight, is a name closely analogous to Canterbury. Asser writes the word Gwiti-gam-burg, the burgh of the men of Wight.” It will easily be seen how the omission of the first part of the name, and the corruption of the last part, have reduced it to its present form.
Another of these widely diffused roots is scetan, 5^/tlers, or inhabitants, and scete or setna, the seat or place inhabited.^ Abafia, Alsace, or Elsass, is the ‘‘ other seat,” the abode of the German ^^/tlers west of the Rhine, a district where, as we have seen, the names of places are still purely German. Hol- stein is a corruption of the dative case of Holt-sati, the ‘‘ forest abode.” ^ From the same root we get Somer^^/ and T>orset, It would appear that the t in Wil-^shire is also due to this root, since the men of Wiltshire are called in the Saxon Chronicle Wilssetan, just as the men of Somerset and Dorset are called Sumorssetan and Dornssetan.'* We have also Pecsaetan, men of the Peak (Derbyshire); Scrobssetan, the men of Shropshire or Scrubland ; Ciltemssetan, the men of the Chiltems; and Wocen- saetan, the people of the Wrekin or hill-country of Exmoor.® Conquering tribes, numerically insignificant, when compared with the other elements of the population, have not unfrequently bestowed their names upon extensive regions. England, for instance, takes its name from the Angles, who only colonised a small portion of the country. In the case of Scotland, we may believe that the Angles, the Norwegians, and the Cymric Celts severally constituted a larger element in the population i
^That is, Episcopus Cantuarensis. See Latham, Eng. Lan. voL i. 1 p. 143; Muller, Marken, vol. i. p. 192; Wright, Wanderings, p. 72; Guest, in Philolog. Proceed, vol. i. p. 10.
^ Cf. the verbs to sit, sitzen, sedere. See Leo, Rectitudines, p. 48. On set, see Guest on Gentile Names, in Phil. Proc. vol. i. pp. 105, 107.
® Forstemann, in Kuhn’s Zeitschrift, vol. i. p. 10; Ortsnamen, p. 105; Muller, Marken des Vaterl. vol. i. p. 121.
* Kemble, Saxons in England, vol. i. p. 78; Saxon Chron. a.d. 800 and 878.
® Kemble, Saxons, vol. i. p. 83.
The Names of Nations 67
than the Scots^ yet this conquering Irish sept, which appears to have actually colonised only a portion of Argyle, has succeeded in bestowing its name upon the whole country. France takes its name from the Franks, a small German tribe ^ which effected a very imperfect colonisation of a portion of Central France : the whole of Picardy, Normandy, Brittany, Burgundy, Langue- doc, Guienne, and Gascony being excluded from their influence. Even so late as the time of Philippe Auguste, the term France did not comprehend either Aquitaine or Languedoc.^ Several of the old French provinces — Burgundy, Normandy, Franche Comte, and the Isle of France — preserve the names of the German tribes which conquered them. The eastern division of the Frank nation has left its name in the Bavarian province of Franken, or Franconia, as we call it. We find the name of the Suevi preserved in Suabia; of the Rugii in the Isle of Rugen; ^ of the Chatti in Hesse; of the Saxons in Saxony; of the Lom- bards in Lombardy; of the Huns in Hungary; of the Atrebates in Artois ; of the Pictones in Poitou ; of the Cymry in Cumber- land, Cambria, and the Cumbray Islands at the mouth of the Clyde; ^ of the Goths or Jutes in Catalonia, Jutland, the Isle of Gothland, and the Isle of Wight; ^ and that of the Vandals possibly in Andal-usia.®
^ The mixed multitude of Greeks, Italians, Maltese, English, Germans,, French, and other western Europeans who are found in the streets of Cairo and other eastern cities, all go by the name of Franks to this day: parturiunt mures, et nascitur mons. The cause of the supremacy of the Frank name in the Levant is probably due to the prominent position taken at the time of the crusades by Godfrey of Boulogne, and the Franks of Northern France. See Purchas, His Pilgrimes, vol. i. p. 305; Trench, Study of Words, p. 72. Grimm, Gesch. der Deut. Spr. p. 789, attributes this diffu- sion of the Frank name to the repute of the Carlovingian empire. Latham ascribes it to the exploits of Robert Guiscard and his Normans! Nat. of Europe, vol. ii. p. 23.
* Palgrave, Normandy and England, vol. ii. p. 147. The “ languages or “ nations into which the Hospitallers were divided (a.d. 1322) were: — Provence, Auvergne, France, Italy, Aragon, England, Germany, and
til-0
® Knobel, Volkertafel, p. 38.
* Knobel, Volkertafel, p. 29; Kennedy, in Philolog. Trans, for 1855, p. 164. To this list we may perhaps add the names of Cambrai, Coimbra, CambriUa, and Quimper. Archdeacon Williams refers Montgomeri in France, and the mountain refuge of Monte Comero (anciently Cumerium Promontorium) in Italy, to the same people. Edinburgh Trans, vol. xiii. p. 526.
® In the laws of Edward the Confessor the men of the Isle of Wight are called Guti, i.e. Jutes or Goths. We have also the intermediate forms Geat, Gwit, Wiht, and Wight. G and W are convertible. See p. 62. On the identity of the names Geat and Goth, see Grimm, Gesch. der Deut. Spr» P- 439-
® See p. 71, infra, for another etymology.
68
Words and Places
The Celtic Boii, who left their ancient ‘‘ home ’’ in Bohemia ^ (Boi-hem-ia^ or Boi-heim) to Sclavonic occupants, have also given their name to Bai-tm, or Bavaria.^ So the Sclavonic and Hellenic districts under Moslem rule are called Turkey, from the Turkomans or Turks, who constitute only a small governing class and it is singular that the Philistines, the
strangers ” from Crete, w^ho merely occupied a narrow strip of the sea-coast, should, through their contact with the western world, have given their name to the whole of the land of Pales- tine, in which they never succeeded in gaining any lasting supremacy.^
The names of ancient tribes are also very frequently preserved in the names of modern cities. The process by which this has taken place is exemplified in the case of the Taurini, whose chief city, called by the Romans Augusta Taurinorum, is now Torino, or Turin; while the capital of the Parish, Lutetia Parisiorum, is now Paris; and that of the Treviri, Augusta Trevirorum, has become Trier or Treves.^ We have the name of the Damnonii in Devon, and a portion of the name of the Dwrotriges is preserved in Z)i?rchester, of the Huiccii in PForcester, of the Iceni in Iken and 7<:^borough, of the Selgovse in the Solwsij, of the Bibroci in Bra,y hundred, near Windsor, of the Regni in Regnewood or Ringwood in Hants, and of the Cassii of Csesar in the hundred of Cashio, Hertfordshire, and in Cashio- bury Park, which probably occupies the site of the chief town
^ The Boii broke into Italy, and perhaps gave their name to Bononia, | now Bologna, and to Bovanium, another town in Italy. It has been ! thought that Bordeaux and Bourbon also bear the name of the Boii. See Diefenbach, Celtica, ii. part i. pp. 261, 316; Grimm, Gesch. der Deut, Spr. vol. i. pp. 166, 502; Prichard, Researches, vol. hi. p. 89; Prichard, Eastern Origin of Celtic Nations, pp. 133-136; Tschudi, Hauptschlussel, p. 179; Knobel, V olkertafel, pp. 47, 48; Mommsen, Hist, of Rome, vol. i. p. 338; Latham, Germania, p. 92; Latham, Nationalities of Europe, \ vol. h. p. 326; Zeuss, Die Deutschen, p. 641; Liddell, Hist. Rome, vol. i. I p. 165; Schafarik, Slaw. Alt. vol. i. p. 382.
2 See p. 65, supra.
®The word Turk had a still wider signification in the sixteenth and i seventeenth centuries, when it was used to denote all Mahomedans, as the | word Saracen was in the twelfth century. Trench, Glossary, p. 222. i Compare the collect for Good Friday—** All Jews, Turks, infidels, and heretics.’*
* Renan, Langues Semitiques, p. 57; Stanley, Sinai and Palestine, , pp. 256, 257; Jewish Church, p. 362.
^ Of course, in cases of this kind it is impossible to say that the name of | the city is not more ancient than the name of the tribe. The names Parisi j or Taurini, for instance, may not be true ethnic names, but may have been j derived from the name of their capital, the original name of which can only j be dimly discerned through its Latin garb. See Ansted and Latham, Channel Islands, p. 311.
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69
of the tribe. Many of these names have a certain ethnological value^ inasmuch as they enable us to localise ancient tribes; and therefore a list of such probable identifications is subjoined in the appendix.^
The world-famous name of imperial Rome has been retained by various insignificant fragments of the Roman empire. The Wallachians, the descendants of the Roman colonists on the Danube, proudly call themselves Romani, and their countr}^ Romania. The language of modern Greece is called the Romaic ; that of Southern France is the Romance; and that of the Rhaetian Alps the Romansch. The Romagna of Italy preserves the memory of the bastard empire which had its seat at Ravenna ; and the name of the Asiatic pashalics of Roum and Erzeroum are witnesses to the fact that in the mountain fastnesses of Armenia the creed and the traditions of the Eastern Empire of Rome continued to exist long after the surrounding provinces had fallen under the dominion of the Turks; while for the European province of Roumelia was reserved the privilege of being the last morsel to be swallowed by the Moslem Cyclops.
Conversely the name of a city has often become attached to the surrounding region. The Roman Empire must ever remain the chief instance of such an extension of meaning. This has also been the case with the kingdom of Cabool, with the state of New York, with Berne, Zurich, and others of the Swiss cantons, with several German states, such as Hanover, Baden, Brunswick, and Mecklenburg, and with a large number of the English counties, as Yorkshire, Lancashire, and Salop.
A few countries have taken their names from some ruler of renown. Lodomiria, which is the English form of the Sclavonic Vlodomierz, is so called from St. Vladimar, the first Christian tzar.2 The two Lothairs, the son and the grandson of Louis le Debonnaire, received, as their share of the Carlovingian inheritance, a kingdom which comprised Switzerland, Alsace, Franche Comte, Luxembourg, Hainault, Juliers, Liege, Cologne,, Treves, the Netherlands, Oldenburg, and Friezland. This territory went by the name of the Regnum Lotharii, Lotha- ringia, or Lothier-regne ; but by the incapacity or misfortune of its rulers the outlying provinces were gradually lost, so that in the course of centuries the ample “ realm of Lothair ’’ has dwindled dovvn into the contracted limits of the modem province of Lorraine.^
^ Appendix A. * Across the Carpathians, p. 206.
* Palgrave, Normandy and England, vol. i. p. 363; Yonge, Christian Names, vol. ii. p. 391.
Words and Places
70
The most recent instance of a state called from the name of its founder is Bolivia; a name which remains as a perpetual reproach to the Bolivians, proclaiming the discords and jealousies which drove Bolivar, the liberator and dictator, to die in obscure exile on the banks of the Mississippi. Stet nomints umbra.
The name by which we know China belongs, in all probability, to the same category. It was during the reign of the dynasty of Thsin, in the third century before Christ, that the first know- ledge of the Celestial Empire was conveyed to the West. That the form of the name should be China, rather than Tsin or Sina,^ seems to prove that our first acquaintance with the Chinese empire must have been derived from the nation in whose hands was the commerce with the far East — the Malays — who pro- nounce TAsina as C/zina.^
The names of America, Tasmania, Georgia, Carolina, and others of this class have already been discussed.^
Another class of names of countries is derived from their geographical position. Such as Ecuador, the republic under the Equator, and Piedmont, the land at the foot of the great mountain chain of Europe. Names of this class very frequently enable us to discover the relative position of the nation by which the name has been bestowed. Thus Sutherland, which occupies almost the extreme northern extremity of our island, must evidently have obtained its name from a people inhabiting regions still further to the North — ^the Norwegian settlers in Orkney. We may reasonably attribute to the Genoese and Venetians the name of the Levant,^ for to the Italians alone would the eastern shores of the Mediterranean be the land of the sunrise.” In like manner the Greeks of Constantinople, who watched the sun rise over the mountains of Asia Minor, called the land Anatolia (the rising), a name which is preserved in that of the Turkish province of Natolia. The name of Jepan or Jehpun is evidently of Chinese, and not of native origin, for it means the source of day.” ® The Amalekites,® as well perhaps as the Saracens,"^ are the “ Orientals;” Bactria comes
^ The ancient form Sina indicates transmission through the Arabs. Strinnholm, Wikingziige^ p. 284.
Hue, China, vol. i. p. 347; Cooley, History of Maritime and Inland Discovery, vol. i. p. 120; Fleming, Travels, p. 336.
® See Chapter II.
* Compare the use of the word Orient.
® Kenrick, Phoenicia, p. 85; Alcock, Capital of the Tycoon, vol. ii. p. 88.
* Renan, T.ang. Semit. p. 109.
’ Welsford, English Language, p. 27.
The Names of Nations
7*
from a Persian word bakhtar, the east ; ^ the Portuguese province of the Algarbe is ‘‘the west;” and some scholars are of opinion that the name of Andalusia is also from an Arabic source, and that it signifies Hesperia, or the “ region of the evening.” ^
The name of the Dekkan is a Sanskrit word, which means the “ South.” The etymology of this word gives us a curious glimpse into the daily life of the earliest Aryan races. The Sanskrit dakshina (cf . the Latin dexter a) means the right hand, and to those who daily worshipped the rising sun, the south would, of course, be the dakkhina, or dekkan, “ that which is to the right.” ^
Hesychius tells us that Europe means Svcrem, the
land of the setting sun, and the etymology is supported by Kenrick ^ and Rawlinson,^ who think that we have in this case a Semitic root applied by the Phoenicians to the countries which lay to the west of them. Dean Trench, on the other hand, supports the common explanation that the term evp-dyirri is descriptive of the “ broad face ” or profile which the coast, near Mount Athos, would present to the Asiatic Greek.®
The origin of the name of Asia is also in dispute. Pott ^ refers it to the Sanskrit ushas,^ and thinks that it means the “ land of the dawn,” and is, therefore, to be classed with such names as Levant, Anatolia, and Japan. On the other hand, much may be said in favour of the view that the word Asia was originally only the designation of the marshy plain of the Cayster^ — the Asian plain on which Ephesus (€<^-€cr-os) was built; and the root as or es may, perhaps, be referred to that
^ Welsford, English Language^ p. 27.
* See Gibbon, note, chap. 51, vol. vi. p. 429. It is more probable, how- ever, that Andalusia is Vandalusia, the country of the Vandals. See p. 67, supra ; Keferstein, Kelt. Alt. vol. ii. p. 313; Gayangos, Moham. Dynasties^ vol. i. pp. 23, 322.
® Pictet, Orig. Indo-Eur. vol. ii. p. 495 ; Prichard, Researches, vol. iv. p. 93; Brown, Carnatic Chronology, p. 83. Lassen, however, Ind. Alt. vol. i. p. 46, derives the name from the Sanskrit deggdn, peasants. Es Sham, the local name of Sjnria, means “ the left.”
* Phoenicia, p. 85.
® Herodotus, vol. hi. p. 40.
^English, Past and Present, p. 226. Grimm makes the application of the root refer rather to the broad face of the earth than to the broad outline of the coast. Deut. Myth. p. 631. It is curious that the same etymological connection which appears to exist between the evpela, Europe, and the mythological Europa, is found between the Norse words rinia, the earth, Rindr, the spouse of Odin, and rind, cattle. Deut. Myth. p. 230. Cf. Karl Muller, Mythologie, p. 133.
’ Etymol. Forsch. vol. ii. p. 190.
* Cf. the Greek
» *K(j'up iv Xei/xcovi, KavaTplov d/jL(f>l pieOpa, Homer, Iliad, b. ii. 1. 461. See Forbiger, Alt. Geogr. vol. ii. p. 38.
Words and Places
72
widely-diffused word for water which enters into the names of so many rivers and marshes throughout the Indo-European region.^ As the dominion and the importance of the city of Ephesus increased^the name of this Asian district would naturally be extended to the surrounding region, and the Romans after- wards transferred to the whole country east of the iEgean the name which they found attaching to that Asiatic province with which they first became acquainted.^
The earliest name for the African continent was Libya. The root is, perhaps, the Greek word At^a, moisture — an etymology which, inappropriate as it may seem, would indicate the fact that Africa was first known to the Greeks as the region from which blew the Libyan or “ rain-bringing ” south-west wind.^
The meaning of the word Africa, the Roman name of Libya, is very doubtful. The name seems to have originated in the neighbourhood of Carthage, and is probably Punic, at all events Semitic. It has been conjectured, with some show of probability, that it is derived from the. ethnic designation of some tribe in the neighbourhood of Carthage, and whose name signified ‘‘ The Wanderers,” ^ in the same way that the Numidians were the vofjLaSes — Nomads, or wandering shepherd tribes, ancestors of the Berbers and Kabyles — and as the Suevi or Swabians,® and probably also the Vandals and the Wends,® were the roving border tribes of ancient Germany.*^
^ See Chapter IX.
^ The name of Asia Minor seems to have been invented by Orosius in the fifth century, when a wider geographical knowledge required the name j of Asia for all the regions to the east of the Mediterranean. See Trench, I Study of Words^ p. 96. ■
® Rawlinson, Herodotus, vol. iii. p. 40. |
^ See Movers, Die Phonizier, pt. ii. vol. ii. p. 402 ; Rawlinson, Herodotus, vol. iii. p. 40; and Mommsen, Hist. Rome. Ahrens, in Kuhn’s Zeitsclirifi, vol. iii. p. 171, thinks Africa is the “ south land.” Cf. Fdrstemann, Ih. vol. i. p. 15. i
^ From schweben, to move. See Zeuss, Die Deutschen, p. 57; Muller, j Marken, vol. i. pp. 164-168. Grimm thinks the root is a Sclavonic word | meaning free. Gesch. der Deut. Spr. p. 322. Leo, Vorlesungen, vol. i. i p. 96, prefers a Sanskrit root meaning “ offerers,” and he believes that the I practice of human sacrifice lingered long in the tribe. On human sacrifice l| among the Germans, see Milman, Hist. Latin Christianity, vol. i. p. 244; I Mone, Gesch. Heidenthums, vol. ii. pp. 20, 136; Turner, Anglo-Saxons, vol. i. p. 222.
® The root of these two names appears in the German word wandeln, and I its English equivalents, to wander or wend. To this root may also be ^ attributed the name of Flanders; as well, perhaps, as those of Vindelicia, | Vindobonum, Venetia, and others. See Zeuss, Die Deutschen und die Nachbarstdmme, p. 57; Grimm, Gesch. der Deut. Spr. pp. 322, 475, 476; Latham, Germania, Epileg. p. xc; Arndt, Eur. Spr. p. 89.
^ The name of the Scots has been deduced from an Erse word, scuite, 1
The Names of Nations
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A few names of races are descriptive of personal appearance, or physical characteristics ; and they therefore possess a peculiar value in the eyes of ethnographers.
The Edomites were the “ red ’’ men/ the Moors ^ and the Phoenicians ^ probably the dark ’’ men, and of still darker hue are the Negroes of Negroland, and the Ethiopians, or burnt- faced men,’’^ quos India torret — and we may compare the name of the Du-gall and Fin-gall, the “ black ’’ and white ” strangers from Scandinavia, who plundered the coasts of Scotland, with that of the “ Pale faces,’’ who have encroached on the hunting- grounds of the ‘‘ Red men ” of North America, and of the “ Blacks ” of the Australian continent. The Gipsies term themselves the Zincali or ‘‘ black men.”^
Professor Leo, with a great deal of learning, traces the name of the Goths or Getae to the Sanskrit word gata, which denoted a special mode of dressing the hair in the form of a half-moon, which was practised by the devotees of Siva.® The
meaning “ wanderers/’ which is preserved in the English word scout- Meyer, Brit. Assoc. Reports for 1847, p. 305; Bunsen, Phil, of Univ. Hist- vol. i. p. 15 1 ; Wilson, Prehist. Annals of Scotland, p. 477; Betham, Gael,, pp. xi, xii. The name of the Scythians may possibly be allied to that of the Scots. The Parthians are the “ wanderers ” or strangers. Pott, Indo-Germ. Spr. p. 52; Bergmann, Les Getes, pp, 24, 28. On Ethnic names of this class, see Bergmann, Peuples Primitifs de la Race de Jafete, pp. 42, 45, 52, 53, quoted by Renan, Lang. Semit. p. 39.
^ Knobel, Volkertafel, pp. 12, 135; Renan, Lang. Semit. p. 39.
^ Movers, Phonizier, part ii. vol. ii. p. 372.
* From reddish-brown. See Knobel, Volkertafel, pp. 12, 317;
Kenrick, Phoenicia, p. 68; Forbiger, Alt. Geogr. vol. ii. p. 659; Momm- sen, Hist. Rome, vol. ii. p. i. Movers inclines to the opinion that Phoenicia is the “ land of palms.” Die Phonizier, pt. ii. vol. i. pp. 2-9. Cf. Stanley, Sinai and Pal. p. 267.
* AWiop, from aWoj, to burn. Cf. IIA01//, the swarthy-faced. Curtius, Grundzuge Gr. Etym. vol. i. p. 215; Donidson, New Cratylus, p. 138; Varronianus, p. 30; J. K[enrick], in Phil. Mus. vol. i. p. 353. So the native name of Egypt, Chtoi (Ham), means black. Kenrick, Egypt of Herodotus, p. 22; Knobel, Volkertafel, pp. 13, 239, 240; Renan, Lang. Semit. p. 42; Wilkinson, Anc. Egypt, vol. ii. p. 47; Bunsen, Report on Ethnology in Brit. Assoc. Reports for 1847, p. 254. The name Egypt denotes the country which the Nile overflows. The root aiy, which means “ water,” appears in the name of the ^gean Sea. Kenrick, Ancient Egypt, vol. ii. p. 1 16; Curtius, Die lonier vor der lonischer Wanderung, p. 18. Mizraim, the Biblical name, means “ the two ” banks, or more probably “the two” districts of Upper and Lower Egypt. Knobel, Volkertafel, p, 273; Wilkinson, Anc. Egypt, 2nd series, vol. i. p. 261; Forbiger, Alt. Geogr. vol. ii. p. 767. So India and Sinde are each the “ land of the river.” Pictet, Or. Indo-Euro. vol. i. pp. 119, 144.
^ Pott, Zigeuner, vol. i. p. 27.
® Leo, Vorlesungen, vol. i. pp. 83-85 and 258. Cf. Buyers, Northern India, 449; Bergmann, Les Getes, pp. 43, 47. So the Hastings or Astingi, the noblest race of the Goths, are the “ men with well-ordered hair.” Leo, Vorlesungen, vol. i. p. 86.
Words and Places
74
same writer thinks that the Boii are the “ trim ’’ or ‘‘ neat '' men.^
The name of the Britons has been conjectured, rightly or wrongly, to be from the Celtic brith, paint ; ^ and till rather recent times Claudian was supposed to be correct in his etymology of the name of the painted Piets — ^nec falso nomine Picti. It is, how- ever, far more probable that the Piets, as well as the Pictones of Gaul, are the ‘‘ fighters,” the name being traceable to the Gaelic peicta, or the Welsh peiih, a fighting man.”^ It has been thought that the Scythians ^ are either the ‘‘ shooters,” or the ‘‘shield men;” and that the men of the Balearic Isles are the “ slingers.” ^ The Turks are the “ men with helmets,” ® and the Tatars probably derive their name from a Turanian root, meaning primarily to stretch, and hence “ to draw the bow,” and “ to pitch tents.” The name of the Cossacks is also Turanian, and means “ mounted warriors.” ®
The hatred and trembling contempt felt by the Hindoos for those fierce, lowborn freebooters who carved so many kingdoms out of the falling Mogul empire, is expressed by the name Mah- ratta, which signifies “ pariahs ” or “ outcasts.” There are two similar ethnic names in India. The Cannadi are “ rubbish,” and the Tulava are “ vile.” ®
With regard to the Saxons, the old etymology of Verstegan,^®
^ From the Gaelic word boigh, pronounced boi. Leo, Vorlesungen, vol. i. p. 247. Thierry makes them “ the terrible.” Hist. d. Gaulois, vol. i. p. liv. Cf. Keferstein, Kelt. Alt. vol. ii. p. 293. |
2 No nation would have called themselves by such a name. The | peculiarity might have struck a foreigner, but not a native. See p. 56, note.
^ Compare the Latin word pugna. Pictet, Orig. Indo-Eur. vol. ii. p. 208 ; I Meyer, in Brit. Assoc. Reports for 1847, p. 305; Wilson, Prehistoric Annals of Scotland, p. 470. See, however, Pott, Etym. Forsch. vol. ii. p. 531; Gladstone, Homer, p. 347.
^More probably, however, the name ^Kijdrjs is a corruption of Tschud, j barbarian (see p. 60) ; a name which the Greek colonists on the Euxine heard applied by their Sclavonic neighbors to the barbarous tribes further to the north. See Schafarik, Slaw. Alterth. vol. i. pp. 285, 286; Arndt, 1 Eur. Spr. pp. 138, 323.
® Movers, Die Phonizier, pt. ii. vol. ii. p. 584; Bergmann, Les Getes, pp. 31, 32; Diefenbach, Orig. Eur. p. 239; Boudard, Sur VOrigine des Premiers Habitants des lies Baleares, in the Revue Archeologique, xii. pp. 248-250.
* Gabelentz, in the Zeitschrift d. Morgenl. vol. ii. p. 72.
See an admirable article on Comparative Philology in the Edinburgh Review, vol. xciv. p. 308. Arndt, Eur. Spr. pp. 317, 326, 327, derives the name of the Tatars from the Chinese Ta-ta, a barbarian. This would pro- bably be onomatopoeian, like mlSch, and varvara. See p. 61, supra.
® Latham, Nationalities of Europe, vol. i. p. 376.
® Brown, Carnatic Chronology, p. 84.
Restitution of Decayed IrUelligence, p. 24. I
The Names of Nations 75
broached two hundred years ago, has recently been revived and supported by competent scholars. It would seem that the name did not refer to any particular tribe, but was the desig- nation of a military confederation composed of adventurers from various low-German peoples, who were all distinguished by their use of the seax, a short knife-like sword.^ Dr. Latham, indeed, is of opinion ^ that the names Angle and Saxon related to the same people — the names, perhaps, not being co-extensive ; all Angles were probably Saxons, though all Saxons were not Angles. Or Angle may have been the native name, and Saxon that bestowed by Franks or Celts.
It has been supposed that the Franks were distinguished by the use of f ranee, franca, ox jramea, a kind of javelin; and
the Langobards or Lombards by a long ^arrisan or \iAherd? These etymologies are plausible, but by no means indisputable. They may, however, be supported by the analogous fact in the history of names that the Red men of North America called the early European settlers by words signifying “ sword men ” and ‘‘ coat men.’’ ^
The name of Dauphiny is unique. Its origin is to be traced to the Dolphin, which was the heraldic bearing of the Counts of Albon, the feudal lords of the district. The name of this cetacean, if traced to its source, proves, curiously enough, to be derived from a local name. The chief shrine of Apollo was at Delphi, and the animal, S€Xcf>ts, was sacred to the Delphian god.^
The natural features of the country have supplied many ethnic names. From the Greek rpa^vs we obtain the name of
^ Leo, Vorlesungen, vol. i. pp. 236 and 288, The seax was originally a stone knife, or celt, the name being derived from saihs, a stone. Cf. the Latin saxum.
* Latham, Eth. Brit. Is. pp. 191-195; Eng. Lang. vol. i. pp. 162-165. Cf. Arndt, Eur. Spr. p. 250. Grimm, Gesch. der Devi. Spr. pp. 228, 609, Donaldson, English Ethnography, p. 44, and Turner, Anglo-Saxons, vol. i. p. 100, connect the Saxons with the Asiatic Sacae. Pictet rejects this. Orig. Indo-Europ. vol. i. p. 87; cf. Bergmann, Les Giles, p. 22.
® Similarly the name of the Angles has been derived from angol, a hook, that of the Germans from the javelin called a gar, and those of the Heruli and the Cherusci from the Gothic heru, a sword. Kemble, Saxons, vol. i. p. 41; Grimm, Gesch. der Deut. Spr. pp. 81, 512; Leo, Vorlesungen, vol. i. P* 255; Wackernagel, in Haupt’s Zeitschrift, vol. vi. p. 16. Cf. Muller, Mcirken, pp. 176-180; Latham, Eng. Lang. vol. i. p. 216; Bosworth, Origin, p. 122; and Mone, Gesch. Heidenih. vol. ii. p. 124; who quotes Leo, Othins V erehrung, a work which I have not been able to procure.
* Roger Williams, Key into the Languages of N. America, p. 39.
® C. O. Muller, Dorians, vol. i. p. 325; Menage, Origines, pp. 250, 698; Yonge, Christian Names, vol. i. p. 157; see, however, Curtius, Grundzuge^ vol. ii. p. 65; Kuhn, Zeitschrift, vol. ii. p. 129.
D 517
Words and Places
76
Thrace/ the rugged country, as well as of Trachonitis,- a sort of basaltic island in the Syrian desert — a scene of grand rocky desolation, where vast fissures, and lines of craggy battlement call to mind the lunar landscape, as viewed through a powerful telescope, rather than any scene on the surface of the earth.^ Petra takes its name from the long sandstone parapets which gird the Wady Mousa; Albion is the “ hilly land ’’ of Scotland,^ and Albania is so called from the snowy range, whose peaks are seen, from the Ionian islands, glistening brilliantly in the evening sun. Cambria and Cumberland are the lands of the Cymry — the mountaineers,^ and the Croats or Chorw^ats,® as well as the Kabyles,"^ the Malays,® the Chauci,® the Arcadians,^® the Greeks, the Dorians,^^ the Thuringians, and the Tyrolese are the “ Highlanders,” while Attica is the ‘‘ Promontory.”
The Canaanites are the “ lowlanders,” as distinguished from the Avites and the Amo rites, or “ dwellers on the hills,” and from the Hittites and the Hivites, who were respectively the “ men of the valleys,” and the men of the towns.” The Poles
^ Gladstone, Homer, vol. i. pp. 158, 347, 382; Grimm thinks the root is Bpaatjs rather than rpax^^s, Gesch. der Deut. Spr. p. 195.
* Trachonitis is the Greek translation of Argob, the Hebrew name.
® See Stanley, Jewish Church, p. 213; Graham, in Cambridge Essays for 1858, p. 145.
* Pictet, Orig. Indo-Euro. vol. i. p. 70. Cf. Meyer, in Reports of Brit. Assoc, for 1847, p. 303.
* The Cymry are probably the “ men of the combes,” or mountaineers. Mone, Celtische Forschungen, p. 329. Cf. Donald^n, Varron. p. 63; Wright, Essays, vol. i. p. loi. Gliick, Kelt. Namen, p. 26, thinks they are “ the people.” See p. 58, supra.
* From the Sclavonic word gora, a mountain. The root is found in the name of Car-inthia, and also of the Carpathians, which were anciently called Chorwat, or Chrbat. See Adelung, Mithridatcs, vol. ii. p. 647; Knobel, Volkertafel, p. 44; Schafarik, Slaw. Alterth. vol. i. p. 49; vol. ii. p. 305 ; Buttmann, Ortsnamen, p. 72 ; Church of England Quarterly, No. 73, p. 144; Bronisch, in Neues Lausitzisches Magazin, vol. xxxii. p. 274.
’ Brace, Races, p. 173.
® Malaja means a mountain in the Turanian languages of India. Lassen, Ind. Alt. vol. i. p. 57.
® Haupt, in Haupt’s Zeitschrift, vol. iii. p. 190. |
The root is seen in the Latin arx, and the Greek &Kpov. See Church of England Quarterly, No. 73, p. 147.
The same root is found in the Latin turiis, and in the Tors of Devon- j| shire and Derbyshire. The Tyrol, however, may take its name from a castle near Meran. |
The root is found in aKrri and Athos. Phil. Mus. vol. ii. p. 366.
Curtius, Grundzuge der Gr. Ety. vol. i. p. 32; Knobel, Volkertafel, p. 309; Renan, Lang. Semit. p. 182; Stanley, Sinai and Pal. pp. 133, 267; I Ewald, Gesch. d. Volkes Isr. vol. i. p. 281; Movers, Phonizier, pt. ii. vol. J i. p. 6. I
Movers, Phonizier, pt. ii. vol. i. p. 80; Ewald, Gesch. d. Volkes Isr. j vol. i. pp. 279-282; Movers, art. Phonizier, in Ersch und Gruber, pp. I 319, 327, 331 ; Wilton, Negeb, p. 159* |
The Names of Nations 77
or Polacs are the ‘‘men of the plain/’ ^ Volhynia is the “level country/’ Westphalia the great “ western field,” ^ Holland is the “fen,”^ Batavia (Bet-au) the “good land,”^ Brabant the “ ploughed land/’ ® and Euboea is the “ well tilled.” ® The Argives lived in the “ tilled ” plain of Argos/ and the Latins are the men of the “ broad plain ” of Latium.® The Kurds are the “ shepherds,” the Sarmatians are the “ men of the steppe,” ® and the Arabs as well as the Bedouin^® are the “men of the desert,” as contrasted with the Fellahs or Fellahin, the “ men of the cultivated ground.”
The Burgundians were the dwellers in burghs or fortified towns.^^ The Tyrrhenians, or Etruscans, were the tower- builders.^^ The Spartans were the dwellers in Sparta, the town of “ scattered houses,” more loosely built than other Grecian cities, because unconfined by a wall.^® The Ramnes, as Momm- sen thinks,^^ were the “Foresters,” a meaning which, according to Wilhelm von Humboldt, attaches to the name of the Basques, the Biscayans, and the Gascons. The Caledonians are, probably,
^ Schafarik, Slaw. Alt. vol. i. p. 49; vol. ii. p. 399; Arndt, Eutop. Spr. p. 249-
* Zeuss, Die Deutschen^ p. 390.
* From ollant, marshy ground. Bosworth, Origin^ p. 21.
* Bet, the first part of this name, is the obsolete positive degree of better and best. The second syllable au, land, is seen in the word fall-ow, the bad or failmg land. Bosworth, Origin, p. 92; Motley, Dutch Republic, vol. i. p. 4. Cf. Thierry, Hist. Gaul. vol. ii. p. 43.
® Brabant, anciently Brach-bant, is from the old high German prdcha, ploughing. Bant means a district, as in the names of the Subantes, Tribantes, and Bucinobantes. Grimm, Gesch. der Deut. Spr. p. 593; Forstemann, Ortsnamen, p. 102.
« Gladstone, Homer, p. 382.
’ The root is seen in ^pyou. Gladstone, Homer, pp. 384-402 ; Thirl- wall, Greece, voi. i. p. 38 ; Curtius, Die lonier, p. 17; Movers, Die Phonizier, pt. i. p. 8. The Pelasgians are, perhaps, the “ men of the plain.” Glad- stone, Homer, p. 214. Other conjectures will be found in Marsh, Horee PelasgiciB, p. 17; Thirlwall, Greece, vol. i. p. 45; Donaldson, Varronianus, p. 30; New Crat. p. 138.
•Mommsen, Hist, of Rome, vol. i. p. 36; Forbiger, Alt. Geogr. vol. iii. p. 649.
* From Sara, a desert or steppe, and mat, a tribe or race. This root is seen in the names of the Jaxa-matae, Thisa-matae, Aga-matae, Chari-matae, and other Asiatic tribes. Schafarik, Slaw. Alterth. vol. i. p. 367.
From arabah, a desert, and badiya, a desert.
Grimm, Gesch. der Deut. Spr. p. 700.
See Knobel, Volkertafel, p. 90; Donaldson, New Crat. p. 133; Donaldson, Varron. p. 13.
Pott, Etymologische Spahne, in Kuhn’s Zeitschrift, vol. v. p. 252.
History of Rome, vol. i. p. 44.
Words and Places
78
the ‘'men of the woods/’ ^ Fife is the “forest/’ Lycia* and Corsica ^ the “ wooded.”
Pontus was the province on the Black “ Sea.” Pomerania ^ is a Sclavonic term, meaning “ by the sea.” The Celtic names of the Morini,® of Armorica,® of Morhiban, of Moray or Murray, and of Glamorgan or Morgant,’ have the same signification. The Salian Franks, to whom is attributed the Salic law of succession, lived by the salt water at the mouth of the Maas.® Dr. Donaldson follows Mr. Kenrick ® in thinking that the lonians are the “ coast-men: ” they were called also the Alyia- Aet5, or the “ Beachmen.” The Achgeans may be the “ Sea- men,” and the iEolians the “ mixed men.” The Hellenes, if not “ hillmen,” may be the “ warriors,” whose martial prowess caused their name to be extended to the whole of the people
^ See p. 63, supra.
* A word akin to lucus must have once existed in the Greek language. See Gladstone’s Homer ^ vol. i. p. 186. The Lacedaemonians are either the dwellers in the forest, or, more probably, the dwellers in the hollow or marsh.
* Bochart, vol. iii. p. 579.
* From po, by, and more, the sea. So the Prusi, or Prussians, are probably the Po-Rusi, the men near the Rusi, or Russians, or perhaps near the Russe, a branch of the river Niemen. See Friedrich the Great, Mem. Hist. Brand., and Voigt, Gesch. Preussens, vol. i. p. 668, quoted by Mahn, Nam. Preussens, p. 3. Compare Donaldson, Varron. p. 70; Pictet, Orig. Indo-Eur. vol. i. p. no; Latham, Ethnology of Brit. Is. p. 73; Arndt, Eur. Spr. pp. 250, 293.
® And of the Morgetes, on the coast of Sicily, according to Archdeacon Williams, Essays, p. 89.
* The preposition ar, on, by, or at, is that found in the names of Argyle, Arles, Armagh, etc. See Adelung, Mithridates, vol. ii. pp. 43, 44; Davies, Celtic Researches, p. 221; Pott, Etymol. Forsch. vol. ii. p. 42; Diefenbach, Celtica, i. pp. 62, 80; Orig. Eur. p. 231; Gliick, Kelt. Namen, pp. 31- 36; Menage, Origines, pp. 61, 680; Thierry, Hist. d. Gaul. vol. i. pp. xxxix, 5.
’ From mor, the sea, and gant, side.
® Leo, Vorlesungen, vol. i. p. 257.
* Donaldson, New Crat. pp. 134, 143; Kenrick, Egypt of Herodotus, and a paper On the Early Kings of Attica, by J. K[enrick], in the Philolog. Museum, vol. ii. pp. 366, 367.
From 7)Xd)v^ the coast. More probably they are the “ wanderers,” from the Sanskrit root jd, which we find in the names of Ion, Hyperion, and Amphion. Curtius, lonier, pp. 7, 8 ; Curtius, Grundziige, vol. i. p. 37. Lassen and Pott think the root is the Sanskrit juwan, young. This, how- ever, seems too abstract. Knobel, Volkertafel, p. 79.
Gladstone, Homer, p. 382 ; Thirlwall, Hist. Greece, vol. i. p. 43.
Conjecturally from an obsolete Greek root, allied to the Latin aqua, and found in the names of the Achelous and the Acheron. See note 4, p. 73, supra ; and Church of England Quarterly, No. 73, p. 155.
Donaldson, New Crat. p. 142. Adelung thinks that the names of the Veneti and of the Wends mean shore-dwellers. Mithridates, vol. ii. pp. 451 and 655; Schafarik, Slaw. Alterth. vol. i. pp. 159, 164. See, however, p. 72, supra.
The Names of Nations
79
whom we know by the name of Greeks. This last name is a curious misnomer. Just as the name of Italy originally desig- nated only the extreme southern portion of the Peninsula/ so the name of Greece was derived from a small and unimportant Epirote tribe of ‘‘ mountaineers ’’ — the Grseci, who, in blood, were probably not Hellenes at all, but Illyrians. By the acci- dent of geographical proximity ^ the Romans became first acquainted with this tribe, and applied their name to the whole of Hellas ; and the modem world has adopted this unfortunate blunder from the Romans, and stamped it with the approval of its usage.
^ In Aristotle the word Italy denotes only a portion of Calabria. In the time of Augustus it came to mean the whole peninsula. Niebuhr, Hist. Rome, vol. i. p. 17; Liddell, Hist. Rome, vol. i. p. 16; Lewis, Cr edibility Rom. Hist. vol. i. p. 272. So Tyre seems to have given its name to the whole of Syria, and the names of Persian and Parsee are traceable to the small province of Pars, or Pars. Gladstone, Homer, vol. i. p. 549. Com- pare the case of Asia, p. 77, and see Kenrick, Egypt of Herodotus, p. 81; Buttmann, Mythologus, vol. ii. p. \*jz. Italy is, perhaps, the “ land of cattle.** Curtius, Grundziige, vol. i. p. 177; Forbiger, Alt. Geogr. vol. iii. p. 488; Bunsen, Phil, of Univ. Hist. vol. i. p. 103. Niebuhr, however, ridicules this etymology.
*See Latham, Germania, p. 28; Eng. Lang. vol. i. p. 166; Mommsen, Hist, of Rome, vol. i. p. 141 ; Thirlwall, Hist. Greece, vol. i. p. 39. Com- pare the case of Palestine, p. 68, and of the Alemanni, p. 59. So the gipsies call the Germans, Saxons (see p. 57), and the Magyars call them Schwabe, the Suabians being the German tribe with which they first became acquainted.
CHAPTER V
THE PHCENICIANS
Physical character of Phoenician sites — T3re — Sidon — Phenice — Phoenician colonies in Crete, Cyprus, Sardinia, Corsica, Italy, Sicily, Malta, Africa, Spain, and Britain.
The Phoenicians established a vast colonial empire. The Mediterranean coast-line of three continents was thickly dotted i over with their settlements, which extended beyond the pillars of Hercules, as far as the River Senegal ^ to the south, and as far as Britain to the north. The causes of this development of colonial dominion must be sought, firstly, in the over-popu- lation of their narrow strip of Syrian coast, shut in between the mountains and the sea, and, secondly, in the spirit of mercantile enterprise with which the whole nation was imbued.^ As in the case of the Venetians, the Dutch, and afterwards still more notably of the English, the factories, which were established for commercial purposes alone, rose gradually to be separate centres of dominion.^ To protect themselves from the lawless i violence of the barbarous tribes with whom they traded, the merchant princes of Tyre found themselves unwillingly compelled to assume sovereignty over the surrounding districts. The origin of the colonial empire of the Tyrians is curiously indicated by a physical characteristic which marks the sites of many of their settlements. These were placed, almost invariably, on | some rocky island near the coast, or on some promontory con- i nected with the mainland by a low isthmus. A position of this kind would usually afford the advantage of a natural harbour, in which vessels might find safe anchorage, while the trading j settlement would be secured from the attacks of the barbarous i tribes which occupied the mainland. Tyre itself was probably at first only a trading colony sent forth from the mother city
^ As evidenced by the Phoenician names of Rysadion (Cape Blanco), | Soloeis (Cape Cantin), Soloentia (Cape Bojador), and Bambotus (the River Senegal). Movers, Phonizier, part ii. vol. ii. p. 534; Renan, Lang. Semit. p. 200.
Movers, Die Phonizier^ part ii. vol. ii. p. 5.
^ Renan, Langues Semitiques, p. 44.
80 I
The Phoenicians
8i
at the entrance of the Persian Gulf. The name Tzur ^ or Tyre, which means a ‘‘ rock/’ characterises the natural features of the site — a rocky island near the coast — ^well suited to the requirements of a band of mercantile adventurers. The neigh- bouring city of Aradus stood also upon a littoral island. Sidon occupies a somewhat similar position, being built on a low reef running out to sea, and the name, which denotes a “ fishing- station,” ^ suggests to us what must have been the aspect of the place in those prehistoric times when the first settlement was made. Not unfrequently the names of the Phoenician settle- ments thus indicate the circumstances of their foundation. Sometimes, as in the case of Spain, Malaga, or Pachynus, the names refer to the nature of the traffic that was carried on — more frequently, as in the case of Cadiz, Hippq, or Lisbon, we have a reference to the fortifications which were found necessary to protect the wealthy but isolated factory.
We find the name of the nation repeated in Cape Phineke ^ in Lycia, also in Phoenice in Epirus, a place which now bears the name of Finiki,^ and in five places called Phoenicus, severally in Cythera, in Messenia, in Marmarica, in Ionia, and in Lycia. Pliny also states ® that the island of Tenedos, as well as a small island near the mouth of the Rhone, was called Phoenice. The latter may probably be identified with one of the Hieres islands, which would satisfy the conditions which the Phoenicians sought in their trading stations. One of the Lipari islands, anciently called Phoenicodes, now goes by the name of Felicudi.
But the most interesting spot on which the Phoenicians have left their name is a rocky promontory on the southern coast of Crete, which possesses good harbours on either side. This place is still called Phoeniki, and has been identified ® with the haven of Phoenice mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles. St. Luke says, “ We sailed under Crete . . . and came into a place which is called the Fair Havens . . . and because the haven was not commodious to winter in, the more part advised to depart thence
^Movers, Phonizier^ part ii. vol. i. p. 174; Ersch und Gruber, sect. iii. vol. xxiv. p. 436; Stanley, Sinai and Pal. pp. 270, 498. The name of Syria is probably derived from that of Tzur, its chief city. Ih. p. 270.
* Movers, Phonizier, part ii. vol. i. pp. 34, 868. Compare the name of Beth-saida, the “ house of fish.”
^ Kenrick, Phoenicia, p. 87.
* Leake, Northern Greece, vol. i. p. 66. It is possible that some of these
places may be named from the palm-trees growing on them.
Olshausen, Phon. Ortsnamen, p. 335.
* Pliny, Hist. Nat. iii. ii, and v. 39.
* Conybeare and Howson, Life and Epistles of St. Paul, vol. ii. pp. 395-400; Movers, Phonizier, pt. ii. vol. ii. p. 260.
82
Words and Places
also, if by any means they might attain to Phenice, which is an haven of Crete, and there to winter.’- With true commercial instinct the Phoenicians seem to have selected for the centre of their Cretan trade this sea-washed promontory, with its double harbour, now, as in the time of St. Paul, the best haven along the southern coast of the island.
Lebena, another harbour on the Cretan coast, is the “ Lion promontory.” ^ There is a Cretan Jordan flowing from a Cretan Lebanon.^ Idalia in Cyprus, now Dalin, is the sacred grove.” ^ Samos is the “ lofty,” and the name of Samothrace contains the same root.^ From the Phoenician word sela, a rock, we derive the name of Selinus, now Selenti, in Cilicia — a town which stands on a steep rock almost surrounded by the sea.^ Tarsus, the birthplace of St. Paul, is ‘‘ the strong.” ® Lamp- sacus, now Lamsaki, near Gallipoli, is the passage,” ’ and seems to have been the ferry across the Hellespont.
Sardinia is full of Phoenician names. Cagliari, the chief town, was a Tyrian colony, and its Phoenician name Caralis, or Cararis, has suffered little change. Bosa still bears its ancient Tyrian name unaltered. Macopsisa, now Macomer, is the
town ; ” Othoca seems to be a corruption of Utica, the old ” town, and Nora, like so many other Phoenician settlements, was built upon a little island ofl the coast.®
The name of Corsica, according to Bochart, means the ‘‘ wooded.” ® The desolate forest-clad mountains of this island seem, however, to have had few attractions for the Phoenician merchants, since none of the towns bear names which, in their language, are significant.^®
At Caere, in Italy, there was a Tyrian settlement, which anciently bore the Phoenician name of Agylla, the ‘‘ round town,”^^ and in lower Italy we find the Phoenician names of Malaca, Sybaris, Crathis, Tempsa, Medma, and Hippo
^ Kenrick, Phcenicia^ p. 83; Movers, Phonizier, pt. ii. vol. ii. p. 260.
^ Olshausen, Phonicische Ortsnamen, p. 324.
^Bochart, vol. iii. p. 356; Engel, Kypros, vol. i. p. 153, apud Smith Diet Geogr.. vol. ii. p. 13.
* Bochart, vol. iii. p. 378 ; Renan, Lang. Semit. p. 44.
® Movers, Phonizier, pt. ii. vol. ii. p. 174.
® Gesenius, Monumenta, p. 427.
’ Movers, Phonizier, pt. ii. vol. ii. p. 296.
® Other Phoenician names found in Sardinia are Cornus, Carbia, Olbia, Buccina, Cunusi, Charmis, and Sulchi. Movers, Phontzier, part ii. vol. ii. PP- 558, 572, 576-578; Bochart, vol. iii. p. 576.
* Bochart, vol. iii. p. 579. Movers, pt. ii. vol. ii. p. 578.
Mommsen, Hist, of Rome, vol. i. p. 136; Olshausen, Phonicische
Ortsnamen, p. 333. Cf. Gesenius, Monum. p. 419.
Movers, pt. ii. vol. ii. p. 344.
The PhcEnicians
83
Cape Pachynus, in Sicily, was the station ” for the boats engaged in the tunny fishery.^ Catana, now Catania, is the
little ’’ town.^ Mazara, which still preserves its ancient name, is the “ castle and the familiar name of Etna is a corruption of attuna, the ‘‘ furnace.’’ ^ Many other ancient names attest the long duration of the Phoenician rule in this island.^
Diodorus informs us that the Island of Malta was a Phoenician settlement; and we find that not only does the name of the island bear out this assertion,® but at Hagiar Chem — the stones of veneration ” — we have extensive remains of a Phoenician temple. The site was explored by Sir H. F. Bouverie about twenty years ago, when the outlines of the seven courts of the temple were traced, and the statues of the seven presiding planetary deities were disinterred.*^
The Phoenician capital was, probably, near the south-eastern extremity of the island. Here is a deep bay, on the shores of which stand the ruins of a temple of Melcarth, the ‘‘ city king.” ® This word cartha, a city, appears in the Old Testament in the names of twelve places called Kirjath, as well as in that of Carthage, the great Tyrian colony in Northern Africa.®
Carthage — Kart-hada, or Kartha hadtha — the “ New Town ” soon eclipsed in splendour and importance the older settlement of Utica, ‘‘the ancient and before long she began to rival
^ Movers, pt. ii. vol. ii. p. 325.
* Ih. p. 329.
® Ib. p. 332 ; Gesenius, p. 425.
* Bochart, vol. iii. p. 526. The name cannot be derived from the Greek atduj^ as Pictet shows. It may possibly be Oscan, according to Benfey, in Hofer’s Zeitschrift^ vol. ii. p. 117; Curtins, Grundzuge, vol. i. p. 215. Cf. Church of England Quarterly ^ No. 73, p. 147.
® e.g. Arbela, which also occurs in Palestine; Thapsus, the “ passage,** Anesel, the “ river head,** Amathe, the “ castle,” Adana, Tabae, Motuca, Mactoriiun, Ameselum, Bidis, Cabala, Inycon, and many more. Movers, PP* 329, 339-342; Gesenius, pp. 419, 428.
* Melita means a ” place of refuge,’* Gesenius, p. 92; Bochart, vol. iii. p. 500; Movers, in Ersch imd Gruber, § iii. vol. xxiv. p. 349.
’ Kenrick, Phoenicia^ p. no; Tallack, Malta, pp. 115-127; Movers, Phonizier, part ii. vol. ii. p. 351.
* The word Melek, a king, is found in all the Semitic languages. It is seen in the names of Melchisedek, Melchior, Abdu-l-malek, etc.
* It appears also in the names of Cirta, Ta-carata, Cartili, Cartenna, Caralis, Carpi, Carepula, Mediccara, Cura, Curum, Rusucurum, Ascurum, Ausocurro, Curubis, Garra, Medugarra, Tagara, Tagarata, etc. Gesenius, Scrip. Ling. Ph. Mon. p. 417; Wilton, Negeb, p. 99. A suburb of Palermo anciently bore the name of Karthada. Movers, pt. ii. vol. ii. p. 30.
Movers, p. 139; Gesenius, p. 421; Bochart, vol. iii. p. 468.
Bochart, vol. iii. p. 474; Gesenius, p. 429. Movers (p. 512) doubts this etymology.
Words and Places
84
even the mother city of Tyre, and to lay the foundations of a colonial empire of her own.
Spain seems to have been first known to the Phoenicians as the land where the skins of martens ^ were procured, and the name Hispania or Spain appears to be derived from a Phoenician word sapan, or span, which denotes the abundance of these animals.^ Many of the Phoenician colonies in Spain were Tyrian rather than Carthaginian. Escalona is, probably, the same word as Ascalon ; and Magueda is, perhaps, identical with Megiddo. Asido, now Medina Sidonia, was, as the name denotes, a colony of the Sidonians.^
Cadiz, as we learn from Velleius Paterculus, was founded before Utica, and consequently long before Carthage. The name Cadiz is a corruption of the ancient name Gadeira, and is referable to the Phoenician word gadir, an inclosure. ^ Tlie site presents the features of other Tyrian settlements — an island separated by a narrow channel from the main land. The same is the case at Carthagena, which is built on a small island in a sheltered bay. The name of Carthagena is a corruption of Carthago Nova or new Carthage; and we may, therefore, assign to it a Carthaginian rather than a Tyrian origin. Near Gib- raltar there is another town named Carteja, anciently Carteia.^ The name of Malaga is derived from the Phoenician word malaca, salt.® Hispalis, now Sevilla, was also a Carthaginian colony, and the name is deducible from a Phcenician word meaning a
plain.’’ ^ The Tagus is the river of fish.® The name of Olisippo, which has been corrupted into Lisbon, contains the word hippo, the ‘‘ walled ” town, which occurs so frequently in Phoenician
^ FaX^ TapTi}(nai — martens, or perhaps rabbits — see the passages from Herodotus, iv. 192; Strabo, hi. 2, 6; Schol. in Aristoph. Ran. 475; ^Elian, V. H. xii. 4, and other writers which are quoted by Movers, part ii. vol. ii. p. 606. Compare Charnock, Local Etymology ^ p. 254.
* Bochart, vol. iii. p. 631; Niebuhr, Lectures on Ethnol. and Geograph. vol. ii. p. 279.
® Movers, part ii. vol. ii. p. 641.
^Movers, p. 621; Gesenius, p. 304; Keiirick, p. 126. Compare the names of the i^lgades Islands near Sicily, of Geder (Joshua xii. 13) ; Gedera (Josh. XV. 36) ; Gedor (Josh. xv. 38) ; and Gadara, the city of the Gadarenes {Josephus, Jewish War^ iv. 3; St. Mark v. i). See Bochart, vol. iii. p. 608; Movers, pp. 139, 549.
^ Perhaps identical with Tartessus. Duke of Buckingham, Diary ^ vol. i. p. 70; Bochart, vol. iii. p. 615; Olshausen, Phon. Ortsnamen, p. 328; Smith, Dictionary, vol. i. p. 528; Movers, pp. 632-635.
® Bochart, vol. iii. p. 616; Movers, p. 632. Cf. Gesenius, p. 312; Prescott, Ferd. and Isabella, vol. ii. p. 13.
^ Bochart, p. 603; Gesenius, p. 423; Movers, p. 641.
* Ford, Gatherings, p. 28, The root appears in the name of the god Dagon.
The Phoenicians
85
names. There were three cities called Hippo in Africa, one of them celebrated as the See of the great Augustine, and two of the same name in Spain
Tarraco, now Tarragona, is the “ palace.” ^ The name of Cordova, anciently Cortuba, may be derived either from coteba, the ‘‘ olive press,” or from Kartha Baal, the city of Baal.”^ Belon, now Belonia, near Tarifa,^ as well, perhaps, as the Balearic^ Isles, contain the name of Bel or Baal, the deity whose name enters into the composition of so many Tyrian and Carthaginian names, such as Hannibal, Asdrubal, Maherbal, Ethbaal, Agbalos, Jezebel, Belshazzar, and Baalbec.® There are many other places in Spain which seem originally to have been Carthaginian colonies, since their names can be explained from Punic sources. Such are Abdera, now Adra; Barcino, now Barcelona;’ Ebora, now Evora, the “ford;”® Arci, now Arkos; the River Anas, now the Guadiana; Toledo, and others.^
Whether the Carthaginians reached the shores of Britain is uncertain. We have already seen that the Euskarian origin of the name makes it probable that the earliest knowledge of the island was obtained from Iberic traders ; and it certainly is not improbable that the Carthaginians followed in the track dis- covered by their Spanish subjects. It is a noteworthy circum- stance that the almost unique physical characteristics of St. Michael’s Mount, in Cornw^all, conform precisely to the account given by Diodorus Siculus of the trading station from which the Phoenicians obtained their tin. We may mention, though we can hardly maintain the supposition, that the names of
^ We have also Orippo, Belippo, Baesippo, Irippo, and Lacippo, all on the Spanish coast. Humboldt, Prufung, p. 64; Movers, PhSn. pt. ii. vol. ii. pp. 144, 640; cf. Bochart, vol. iii. pp. 475, 627; Gesenius, Monum. P- 423.
* Bochart, vol. iii. p. 623.
* Bochart, vol. iii. p. 602.
* Movers, p. 639.
® Bochart, vol. iii. p. 634. See, however, p. 74, supra. Ebusus^ now Ivi^a, naeans the “ pine island,” and the Greek name Pitusae is merely a translation of the earlier Phoenician appellation. Movers, Die Phonizier, p. 545 ; art. Phonizien in Ersch und Gruber, p. 349. The Balearic Islands present many Phoenician names, such as Cinici, Cunici Bocchorum, Jamna, Mago, and Sanifera. Movers, pp. 584, 585.
* Kenrick, Phoenicia^ pp. 129, 300; Renan, Langues Semitiques, p. 44; Bochart, vol. iii. p. 634.
’ Movers, p. 636.
* Ib. p. 640. Cf. Gesenius, p. 422.
* e.g. Murgis, Urci, Certima, Saborra, Suel, Salduba, Ucia, Castalo, and Nebrissa. Movers, pp. 633-643. Gesenius, Scr. Ling. Ph. Mon. vol. i pp. 340, 422.
86
Words and Places
Marazion,^ the “ hill by the sea,” and Polgarth (root KartJia) are of Phoenician origin, and are records of the first intercourse of our savage ancestors with the civilised world."
' Marazion seems to have been a Jewish settlement at a later time, and it is possible that the name may be Hebrew, rather than Phoenician. It can, however, be explained from Cornish sources. See Halliwell, Cornwall^ pp. 47-52; ;^yce, Archcdologia Cornu-Brit. s. v. On the Phoenicians in Cornwall, see Wilson, Prehist. Ann. of Scotland, p. 196; Bochart, vol. iii. pp. 648-654; Turner, Anglo-Saxons, vol. i. pp. 51-55; Smith’s Cassite- rides ; and a tract on the Phoenician Tin Trade, recently published by Colonel James.
* On Tyrian and Carthaginian names, see the erudite work of Bochart, Geographice Sacrcc pars posterior, Chanaan, seu de Coloniis et sermone Phoenicum, and the more trustworthy works of Movers, Die Phonizier, and the article Phonizien in Ersch und Gruber’s Allgetneine Encyklopddie, sect. iii. vol. xxiv. See also Kenrick’s Phoenicia ; and the valuable treatise of Gesenius, Scriptures Lingueeque Phoenicice Monumenta. Gesenius dis- cusses the etymologies of more than 400 names, collected from modem maps, the ancient itineraries, coins, inscriptions, and the ancient Geo- graphers, Ptolemy, Strabo, etc.
CHAPTER VI
THE ARABS IN EUROPE
The empire of the Cailiphs — Arabic Names in Southern Italy and Sicily — Tribes by which the conquest of Sicily was effected — Conquest of Spain — ^Tarifa and Gibraltar — Arabic article — River-names of Spain — Arabs in Southern France — ^They hold the passes of the Alps — The Monte Moro pass and its Arabic Names — ^The Muretto pass and Pontresina.
The Arab conquests in the seventh and eighth centuries form one of the most remarkable episodes in the history of the world. At the time of its greatest extension, the empire of the Cailiphs extended from the Indus to the Loire. In the course of a single century they overran Persia, Syria, Egypt, Northern Africa, Spain, and the south of France.
We find Arabic names scattered over the whole of this vast region; and it will be an interesting and profitable task to investigate these linguistic monuments of Moslem Empire, confining our attention more especially to those districts where Christianity has long resumed its sway.
In Southern Italy the dominion of the Arabs lasted hardly half a century, and consequently we cannot expect to find many Arabic names. Their chief conquests lay in the neigh- bourhood of the cities of Benevento and Bari, not far from which we find the doubtful Arabic names of Alife, Alfidena, and the River Almaro.^
In Sicily, where the Arab colonisation was more extensive, and where their empire was more enduring than in Italy, we naturally find more abundant and less doubtful traces of their presence. The well-known name of Marsala means, in Arabic, the ‘‘ Port of God.” Gebel, the Arabic name for a mountain, is still retained in the patois of the Sicilian peasantry, who prefer the mongrel term Mongibello to the ancient Phoenician name of Etna.^ From the same root comes the name of the Gibellina — a mountain ridge of the Province of Trapani.
It would appear that the Arabs kept down by military rule
^ See Wenrich, Return ab Arabibus gestarum Commentarii^ p. 140.
® Duff, in Oxford Essays for 1857, p. 93; Wenrich, Ret. ab At. gest. p. 309; Pihan, Glossaire, p. 136.
87
88
Words and Places
a considerable subject population, for the island is covered with fortresses of their erection. The position of these we can often discover by means of the Arabic word kaVah, or kaVat^ a castle on a rock — a root which enters into the names of many Sicilian towns, such as Calotabalotta (Karat-a-bellotta, oak- tree castle ^), Calatagirone, or Caltagirone (Karat-a-Girun), Calascibetta (Karat-a-xibetta), Calatafimi (Karat-a-fieni), Calatamisetta (castle of the women), Calatavutura, Caltani- setta, Calatabiano, Calamonaci, and Catalamita.^
There are also in this island many Arabic names of villages and farms.^ The word menzil, a “ station,^’ or “ hut,’’ is found in Misilmeri (Menzil-Emir), and in Mezzo juso (Menzil-Yusuf). The most common of these Arabic prefixes ^s rahly a ‘‘ house,” which appears in the names of Regalmuto and Re-sultana. It occurs no less than one hundred and seven times, while Kal’at is only found in twenty names, and Menzil in eighteen.^ We have ras, a cape, in the names of Rasicanzir, the cape of swine, Rasicalbo, the dog’s cape, Rasacarami, the cape of vineyards, and Rasicomo, or Cape Horn.® In Palermo the two chief streets bear the Arabic names of the Cassaro, or ‘‘ Castle Street,” and the Maccheda, or “New Street,” ’ and we find many other Arabic names scattered here and there over the island, such as Godrano, the “ marsh; ” Chadra, and Cadara, the “ green; ” Alcara, Mistretta, Mussomeli, Gazzi, Monte Merino ; and a few personal names, such as Abdelali and Zyet.® Altogether there are in Sicily some 328 local names of Arabic origin, and the distribution of these is remarkable, as showing the relative
^ This word is not confined to the Semitic languages. We have the Persian Kdlat or Kaldtah, a “ hill castle,” and the Sanskrit Kalatra (IKataka), a “ fortress.” Pictet, Orig, Indo-Eur, vol. ii. p. 194.
* Gayangos, Mohammedan Dynasties , vol. i. p. 450; Wenrich, p. 308.
® Compare the names of Khelat, the capital of Beloochistan, and of Galata, a walled suburb of Constantinople. Yenikale in the Crimea is Yeni Kal’ah, the “ new fortress ” — a name half Turkish, and half Arabic.
* As Abela says, the Arabs have left in Sicily “ un gran novero di nomi di citta, di terre, e di luoghi particolari.” Malta Ulustrata, vol. i. p. 682. There are many Arabic words in the Sicilian patois^ as saliare^ to wonder, chamarrp., an ass, hannaca, a necklace. The few Arabic words in Italian, such as alcova, a chamber, ammiraglio, an admiral, arsenate, an arsenal, and the vessels called carraca and feluca, were probably introduced through the Spanish. See Bianchi-Giovini, Dominazione degli Arahi in Italia, PP- 55, 5b; Diez, Gram. Rom. Spr. vol. i. pp. 59, 70; Duff, in Oxford Essays for 1857, p. 91; Wenrich, pp. 309-312, 323.
* Amari, Storia dei Musulmani, vol. ii. p. 434.
* Bianchi-Giovini, Dominazione degli Arahi, p. 56; Wenrich, p. 308; Amari, Storia dei Musulmani, vol. ii. p. 435.
’ Bianchi-Giovini, Domin. d. Arabi, p. 57.
* Amari, Storia dei Musulmani, vol. ii. p. 435.
The Arabs in Europe 89
amount of Arab influence in different portions of the island. In the Val di Mazara there are 209 Arabic names ^ in the Val di No to 100, and the Val Demone only 19.^
The mediaeval and modem names of Sicilian villages supply us with curious information as to the countries out of which was gathered the motley host that fought under the standard of the Prophet. In Sicily alone we find traces of tribes from Scinde^ Mesopotamia, Egypt, Syria, and Spain.^ Thus, a fountain near Palermo, now called Dennisinni, was anciently Ain es-Sindiy the fountain of Scinde. But the conquest of Sicily seems to have been effected, for the most part, by troops levied from the neighbouring continent of Africa. There are more than a dozen indisputable names of Berber tribes to be found in Sicily, chiefly in the neighbourhood of the Val di Mazara.^
In the islands of Sardinia and Corsica the Arab rule was brief, and we find no Arabic names, except Ajaccio, and, perhaps, Alghero and Oristan. But Malta is full of Arabic names. The word mirsah, a port, which is found in the name of Marsala, in Sicily, appears in Malta in the names of numerous bays and inlets, such as Marsa Scirocco, Marsa Scala, Marsa Muscetto, and Marsa Fomo. The ravines commonly go by the name of vyedy or wied, a corruption of the Arabic word wadtA The hills have the prefix gebel, the fountains aayUy the wells bir, the castles cala, the houses deyr, the caves ghar, the villages rahal, the capes ras. From the map of the island it would be easy to collect scores of such names as Aayn il Kebira, the great fountain; Aayn Taiba, the good fountain; Gebel Oomar, the mountain of Omar; Ras el Tafal, Chalk Cape. In the neigh- bouring isle of Gozo we find the Arabic village-names of Nadur, Zebbey, Garbo, Sannat, and Xeuchia. Among the peasants of Malta and Gozo a corrupt Arabic patois still holds its ground against the Lingua Franca, the Italian, and the English which threaten to supplant it.^
^ Amari, Storia dei Musulmani, vol. ii. p. 435.
^ The local names of Sicily, as illustrating the nationality of the tribes by which the conquest was effected, have been investigated by Amari, Storia dei Musulmani di Sicilia^ vol. ii. pp. 31-36.
* Amari, Musulmani, vol. ii. p. 35.
* An exhaustive enumeration and explanation of the names in Malta is to be found in a work called Malta Illustrata, Ovvero descrizione di Malta con sue antichitd, ed altre notizie, by F. Giovanfrancesco Abela, vol. i. pp.
231-369-
* See Tallack’s Malta, p. 246. It has been asserted by Michaelis, Majus, and other writers, that the Maltese dialect contains many Punic words, and contains traces of Punic grammar. This is denied by Gesenius. See his
Words and Places
90
Of the island of Pantellaria the Duke of Buckingham says,
the language spoken is a bad Italian, mixed up with a bastard Arabic. All the names of places, headlands, and points, are pure Arabic, and every hill is called ghibel something.’’ ^
In no part of Europe do we find such abundant vestiges of the Arab conquest as in Spain and Portugal. The long duration of the Arab rule — ^nearly eight centuries — is attested by the immense number of Arabic local names, as compared with the dozen or half-dozen that we find in Italy, France, or Sardinia, whence they were soon expelled.
The very names of the first invaders are conserved in local memorials. In September, a.d. 710, Tarif-Abii-Zar’ah, a Berber freed-man, effected a landing at a place which has ever since been called after him — ^Tarifa. He was quickly followed by Tarik-Ibn-Zeyad,^ a liberated Persian slave, who, at the head of a body of light horsemen, advanced, in a few weeks, some seven hundred miles across the peninsula, as far as the Bay of Biscay. This bold chieftain landed in the Bay of Algeziras,^ and he has left his name on the neighbouring rock of Gibraltar, which is a corruption of the Arabic name Gebel- al-Tarik, the ‘‘ Mountain of Tarik.”
The accompanying sketch-map will serve to give a rough notion of the distribution of the Arabic names upon the map of Spain. Unfortunately, owing to the smallness of the scale, it has been impossible to indicate the position of more than a proportion of the names.
These local linguistic monuments make it easy for us to
, Versuch uber die Maltesische Sprache zur Beurtheilung der neulich wieder- hohlten Behauptung doss sie ein Ueberrest der AUpunischen sey. He allows that there are raany Berber or Moorish words mingled with the Arabic, but none clearly to be referred to the time of the Carthaginian conquest. The same conclusion, substantially, is arrived at by Kosegarten, in Hofer’s Zeitschrift, vol. ii. pp. i, 30, and by Renan, Langues Semitiques, pt. i. P* 413-
^ Private Diary, vol. 11. p. 139.
2 Mariana and Conde assert the identity of these two chieftains, but the latest and best authority on the subject, Reinaud, in his Invasion des SarazinSy pp. 432, 433, has vindicated the accuracy of Gibbon, and has conclusively shown that Tarif and Tarik were separate personages. See also Gayangos, vol. i. pp. 264-289, 318, 517; Sayer, Hist, of Gibraltar, pp. 5, 6; Murphy, Mahometan Empire, pp. 53-59; Conde, Dominacion, pp. 14, 15; Pihan, p. 137.
® Algeziras means “ the island.” the Arabic chroniclers it is called
Jezirah al-Khadhra, “ the green island.” Gayangos, vol. i. pp. 317, 517; Prescott, Ferdinand and Isabella, vol. i. p. 398; Sayer, Hist, of Gibraltar, p. 8. Algiers is a corruption of the same name, A1 Jezirah, a nanie which has also been given to Mesopotamia — the peninsula between the Tigris and the Euphrates.
The Arabs in Europe 91
distinguish those districts where the Arab population was most dense. The Arabic names are seen to cluster thickly round Lisbon and Valentia; and in the neighbourhood of Seville, Malaga, and Granada,^ the last strongholds of the Moslem
DISTRIBUTION OF ARABIC NAMES IN SPAIN AND PORTUGAL
kingdom, they are also very numerous; but as we approach the Pyrenees, and the mountains of Galicia and the Asturias, these vestiges of Moslem rule entirely disappear, and are re-
^ Contrary to what might have been supposed, we find that the Arabic names in the immediate vicinity of Granada are relatively less numerous than in some other places, as the neighbourhoods of Valencia and Seville. This is probably due to the forced eviction of the inhabitants of Canada under Ferdinand and Isabella, and the wholesale substitution of a large Christian population; whereas in the case of earlier conquests, the Arab population, being allowed to remain till gradually absorbed, succeeded in transmitting the greater number of the local names.
92 Words and Places
placed by names derived from the Basque, Celtic, and Spanish languages.
An obvious feature which characterises the local nomen- clature of Spain and Portugal is the prevalence of the Arabic definite article al, which is prefixed to a very large proportion of names, such as Alicant, Albuera, Almanza, Alcala, Almarez, Almeida, Alhambra, and Algoa. On the maps of the Peninsula published by the Useful Knowledge Society there appear about two hundred and fifty names containing this prefix. Of these sixty-four per cent, are found to the south of the Tagus, and only thirty-six per cent, to the north of that river.
The Spanish river-names beginning with Guad are very numerous. In Palestine and Arabia this word appears in the form wadi^ a “ ravine,’’ and hence a “ river.” The name of the Guadalquivir is a corruption of Wadi-l-Kebir, the great river — a name which is found also in Arabia. We have also the river-names Guadalcazar, which is Wadi-l-Kasr, the river of the palace; Guadalhorra, from Wadi-l-ghar, the river of the cave; Guadarranke, from Wadi-l-ramak, the mare’s river; Guadalquiton, from Wadi-l-kitt, the cat river; Guadalaxara, from Wadi-l-hajarah, the river of the stones; Guaroman, from Wadi-r-roman, the river of the pomegranate-trees; Guadal- aviar, from Wadi-l-abyadh, the white river; Guadalupe, the river of the bay; Gualbacar, the ox river; Guadalimar, the red river; Guadarama, the sandy river; Guadaladiar, the river of houses ; and the more doubtful names of Guadaira, the river of mills; Guadalertin, the muddy river; and Guadalbanar, the river of the battle-field. We have also the Guadiana and the Guadalete, which embody the ancient names of the Anas ^ and the Lethe.®
The name of Medina, which means ‘‘ city,” appears not only in Arabia ^ and Senegambia, but also five times in Spain.® The
^ This word appears to have been adopted by the Greeks, and corrupted into the form 6a<rts. Renan, Lang. S^mit. pt. i. p. 205. Cf. Peyron, Lexicon Copt. p. 160.
®The name of the Anas is Phoenician according to Bochart, vol. iii. p. 627, but it is capable of a Celtic etymon.
® \Ve find also the rivers Guadafion, Guadehenar, Guadajor, Guadalbarro, Guadalbullon, Guadalcana, Guadalerce, Guadalertin, Guadaleste, Guadal- mallete, Guadalmedina, Guadalmelera, Guaderriza, Guedaxira, Guada- zamon, Guadazelete, Guadacenas, Guadetefra, Guadarmena, Guadalfeo, Guadalmez, Guadalcalon, and others, the names of which are elucidated with more or less success by Gayangos, Weston, and De Sousa.
• Yathrib, the city to which Mohammed fled from Mecca, bore thence- forward the name of Medinet-ennabi, the city of the prophet. Caussin de Perceval, Histoire des Arabes, vol. iii. p. 21.
® Medinaceli, Medina Sidonia, etc., Pihan, p. 200; Prescott, Ferd. and Isab. vol. i. p. 398.
The Arabs in Europe 93
word kaVahy a castle, which we have traced in Sicily and Malta, is found in Calatayud, “ Job’s castle,” ^ in Aragon; Calahorra, the fort of stones,” ^ in Old Castile ; and Calatrava, the ‘‘ Castle of Rabah,” ^ in New Castile. There are also half a dozen places called Alcala, which is the same word with the definite article prefixed.
Such names as Benavites, Beniajar, Benarraba, Benicalaf, Beniaux, Bentarique, and Benadadid, may embody curious information as to the names of the original Arab settlers, for the first syllable of such names is the patronymic Beni, ‘‘ sons,” and the remainder is a personal or tribal appellation.^
But the great mass of Hispano-Arabic names are descriptive terms, relating to the artificial or natural features of the country. Such are the names Alborge, the turret; Albufeira, the lake;^ Almeida, the table; Alcacova, the fortress (a common name); Almanza, the plain;® Alpuxarras, the ‘‘grassy” mountains;’ Almena,® the battlemented tower; Almazen, the storehouse;^ Almaden,^® the mine ; Alhambra, the red ; Algarbe, the west; Arrecife, the causeway Almazara, the mill;^^ Alcazar, the palace; Aldea, the village; Alcana, the exchange;^® Alcantara, the bridge ; ^® Alqueria, or Alcarria, the farm ; and Trafalgar (Tarqf al-ghar)y the promontory of the cave.^®
^ Built by the chieftain Ayub, or Job, who took a foremost part in the conquest, and was afterwards Governor of Spain. Conde, Dominacion, pp. 30-33; Gayangos, vol. i. p. 373; Weston, Remains of Arabic in the Spanish and Portuguese Languages, p. 143; De Sousa, Vestigios da Lingua Arabica cm Portugal, p. 4.
^ Weston, p. 145.
® Gayangos, vol. ii. p. 356. Cf. Weston, p. 146.
*• On the inferences to be drawn from Spanish names as to the nation- alities of the Moslem settlers, see Gayangos, vol. i. p. 356; vol. ii. pp. 20-29, 402, 403, 442. On the prefix Beni, see Wilton, Negeb, p. 140.
® A corruption of Al-buheyrah. Gayangos, vol. i. p. 374.
* Gayangos, vol. i. p. 354; vol. ii. p. 515; Charnock, Loc. Etym. p. 28.
’ Prescott, Ferd. a^ p. 398.
* From the same root comes the word minaret. Weston, p. 61.
* From the same root comes the word magazine. De Sousa, p. 45 ; Charnock, Loc. Etym. p. 8; Weston, p. 60; Engelmann, Glossaire, p. 52.
The greatest quicksilver mine in Europe. Engelmann, p. 47.
De Sousa, p. 38; Weston, p. 54; Pihan, p. 31; }Amr\phy, Mahometan Empire in Spain, p. 19 1.
^*De Sousa, p. 35; Weston, p. 53; Pihan, p. 29; Conde, Dominacion, p. 671.
Prescott, Ferd. and Isab. p. 398; Engelmann, p. 62.
^‘Gayangos, vol. ii. p. 541.
** From the same root come dogana and douane. Pihan, p. 113 ; Weston, P- 45. .
Pihan, p. 24; De Sousa, p. 22; Gayangos, vol. i. pp. 61, 370; Weston, p. 44.
Gayangos. vol. i. p. 353; Conde, p. 671; Engelmann, p. 23.
See p. 89, supra ; and Gayangos, vol. i. p. 320.
Words and Places
94
A large number of Hispano-Arabic names are illustrated in Weston’s Remains of Arabic in the Spanish and Portuguese Languages, and in Pihan’s Glossaire des Mots Frangais tires de VArabe, du Persan, et du Turc. A competent and exhaustive investigation of these names has, as far as I am aware, never been attempted; and it would, undoubtedly, supply materials of great value to the historian of the conquest. The Arabic names in Portugal have been well discussed by Fr. Joao de Sousa, in a work entitled, Vestigios da Lingua Arnica em Portugal}
Flushed by the ease and rapidity of their Spanish conquest, the Arabs crossed the Pyrenees, and spread their locust swarms over the southern and central regions of France, as far as Tours. In the neighbourhood of this city, in the year 732, Charles Martel gained one of the great decisive battles which have changed the current of the world’s history, and the almost total destruction of the Moslem host rescued Western Christianity from the ruin which seemed to be impending. After this event the fugitives seem to have retired into Provence, where they maintained a precarious sovereignty for some thirty years.
In the Department of the Basses Pyrfoees we find some vestiges of these refugees. At Oloron, a town not far from Pau, is a fountain called La Houn {ain) Deous Mourous, or the fountain of the Moors; and in a neighbouring village, which bears the name of Moumour, or Mons Mauri, there stands a ruined tower called La Tour des Maures.^
Fontarabie, in the Department of the Charente Inferieure, marks a kind of oasis in the sandy desert of the Landes, and, like Fontarabia on the Bidassoa, may have been a station of the Arabs. ^
In the patois of South-eastern France there are several words of Arabic origin,^ while down to the seventeenth century, many families of Languedoc, descended from these Moors, bore the name of “ Marranes.” In Auvergne also there is a pariah race
^ On Spanish words of Arabic origin, see Diez, Gram. d. Rom. Spr. vol. i. pp. 70, 333; Gayangos, History of the Mohammedan Dynasties in Spain, vol. ii. pp. xxxvi, clxix, clxx; and vol. i. p. 487; and Engelmann, Glossaire des Mots Espagnols et Portugais dirives de VArahe, whose lists contain about 400 Spanish and Portuguese words derived from the Arabic.
® Michel, Hist, des Races Maudites, vol. ii. p. 98.
® In this latter case much may be said in favour of the etymology Fuente Rabia — Fons Rabidus, or rapidus. Salverte, Essai sur les Noms, vol. ii. p. 264.
* A list will be found in Astruc, Hist. Nat. de Languedoc, pp. 494-497.
The Arabs in Europe 95
called Matrons, whose conversion to Christianity has given the French language the term marrane, “ a renegade.” ^
After an interval of more than a century, the Moorish pirates, who had long infested the coast of Provence, established them- selves in the stronghold of Fraxinet, near Frejus (a.d. 889), and held in subjection a large part of Provence and Dauphiny. The Foret des Maures, near Frejus, is called after them; and the names of Puy Maure and Mont Maure, near Gap, of the Col de Maure, near Chateau Dauphin, and of the whole county of the Maurienne, in Savoy, are witnesses of the rule in France ^ of these Moorish conquerors.
In the tenth century the Moors still held the Maurienne, and in the year 91 1, by a convention with Count Hugo of Provence, they crossed the Cottian Alps, and took possession of the passes of the Pennine chain, which they guarded for Count Hugo's benefit, while they levied blackmail on travellers for their own. In the years 921 and 923, and again in 929, the chroniclers record that English pilgrims, proceeding to Rome, were attacked by Saracens while crossing the Alps. The bishops of York, Winchester, Hereford, and Wells were among those who thus suffered.^ In the year 973 St. Majolus, Abbot of Cluny, was taken prisoner by these marauders at Orsieres, on the pass of the Great St. Bernard, and he could only obtain his freedom by the payment of a ransom, which consisted of a thousand pounds^ weight of the church plate of Cluny
Such are the few meagre historical facts relating to the Arabs in the Alps which we are able to glean from mediaeval chron- iclers ; fortunately, it is possible to supplement our knowledge by the information which has been conserved in local names. The mountain to the east of the hospice on the Great St. Bernard bears the name of Mont Mort, which there is reason for believing to be a corruption of Mont Maure. If this name stood alone, we might hardly feel ourselves justified in connecting it with the local traditions which refer to the Arabs in the Alps. We
^ Michel, Races Maudites^ vol. ii. pp. 45, 96.
* On the subject of the Moors in France, see Reinaud, Invasion des Sarazins en France^ passim; Bouche, Histoire de Provence^ vol. i. pp. loi, 204 ; Palgrave, Normandy and England^ vol. i. p. 416; Bianchi-Giovini, Dominazione degli Arabia pp. 25, 26; Gayangos, vol. i. p. 228; Wenrich, Rer. ab Arab. gest. pp. 123, 144-146; Papon, Histoire de Provence ^ vol. ii. pp. 77, 146, 165.
* The capture of S. Elphege is related by Osbern, Vit. S. Elpheg. apud Thrupp, AngUhSaxon Home, p. 247. Cf. St. John, Four Conquests of England, vol. i. p. 326.
* Reinaud, Invasion des Sarazins en France, p. 166; Wenrich, Rer. Arab*
p. 147.
Words and Places
96
find, however, that the name Monte Moro, the “ Moor’s Moun- tain,” is attached to another pass which was much frequented in early times,^ before the great roads of the St. Gothard, the Simplon, and the Spliigen had been constructed. Though no direct historical evidence of the fact exists, it seems impossible not to believe that this pass of the Monte Moro must have been held by these ‘‘ Saracens,” or “ Moors.”
In the first place, we find that a strong position, which commands the passage up the Val Anzasca on the Italian side of the pass, is called Calasca — a name which is apparently derived from the Arabic kaVah, a castle, which occurs in the Alcalas and Calatas of Spain and Sicily. The peak opposite Calasca is called Piz del Moro. On the other side of the valley is the Cima del Moro, beneath which lies the hamlet of Morghen. Crossing the Moro pass, the first hamlet we arrive at is placed on a mountain spur or terrace, which commands the view both up and down the valley. This place is called Almagel, which, on the hypothesis of an Arab occupation, would be a most appropriate name, since al mahal denotes in Arabic ‘‘ the station,” or ‘‘ the halting-place.” A high grassy mound, probably the terminal moraine of an ancient glacier, is called the Telliboden, the first syllable of which name seems to be the Arabic word tell, a round hill. The neighbouring pasture goes by the name of the Matmark, the ancient form of which was Matmar, or the
Moor’s Meadow.” Close by is another pasture called the Eyen — a name which is pronounced in exactly the same way as the Arabic din, a ‘‘ fountain,” or “ source of waters ” — a very apposite description, as will be admitted by all those Alpine tourists who, before the recent construction of a road, have splashed across it, ankle deep, for some hundred yards.
Passing the Distel Alp — a doubtful Arabic name — ^we find the valley completely barred by an enormous glacier. This is called the Alalein Glacier, and the Arabic interpretation of the name, Ala ’Z din, or “ Over the source,” gives a most graphic picture of the precipitous wall of ice, with the torrent of the Visp rushing from the vast cavern in its side.
Opposite Almagel, and a little to the north of the Alalein Glacier, are the Mischabel Homer, three peaks, the midmost
^ A paved Roman road exists beneath the snows of the Monte Moro. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries a great permanent extension of the Neve took place in the neighbourhood of Monte Rosa, which has brought the summit of the Moro above the summer snow-line, and rendered the Moro impassable for mules. Lyell, Antiq. of Man, p. 292; Murray, Handbook for Switzerland, p. 290.
The Arabs in Europe 97
of which, the Dom, is the loftiest summit in Switzerland.^ The latter part of the name Mi-schabel is pronounced almost exactly m the same way as the Arabic gebel, a mountain. The genius of the Arabic language would, however, require gebel to be a prefix rather than a suffix, but it is quite possible that Mischabel may be a hybrid formation, akin to Mongibello in Sicily.^ Or we may derive the name from the Arabic word, migbdl, which means, according to Frey tag, “ crassus, ut mons.’^ The con- querors of the East, we may well believe, brought with them the word dome, which Jerome tells us was, in Palestine and Egypt, the universal designation of a house roof.^
The northern outlier of the Mischabel range is called the Balfrain, a name whose Arabic interpretation — “ the peak with two river sources ” — describes the twin glaciers which hang from the flanks of the mountain, and send their tributary streams to join the Visp.^
It is probable that the etymologies assigned to some of these names may be fallacious, but the cases are too numerous, and the accordances with the physical features of the spot are too precise, to allow us to explain them away altogether by any hypothesis of accidental coincidence of sound; and, therefore, though we may not be able to find any historical evidence whatever that the Moro was one of those passes which were occupied by Count Hugo’s Moors, yet it seems impossible not to believe, on the evidence of the names alone, that the present inhabitants of the Saas Valley are descended from the marauders from the Maurienne.
The third of the passes which in ancient times formed the chief communication between Italy and the North was that which connects the Lake of Como with the Engadine. This, also, it would seem, was occupied by the Arabs. Near the summits of the St. Bernard and of the Moro we have the Mont Mort and the Piz del Moro; and so, near the summit of the Maloja and Muretto passes we have the Piz Muretto, the Piz Mortiratsch, and the Piz Morter. Descending the pass on the northern side, we come to a very ancient stone bridge of one arch, springing from rock to rock across a narrow chasm. This place is called Pontresina, which seems to be a corruption of Ponte Saracina, the Saracens’ bridge. The village of Pont re-
^ Mont Blanc is in France — Monte Rosa partly in Italy.
® See p. 87, supra.
® See Ducange sub voc. Vol. ii. p. 901.
* In the neighbourhood we find the names Jazi, Fee, Saas, Balen, and others, which may possibly be traceable to Arabic roots.
Words and Places
98
sina is composed of solid stone houses, Spanish rather than Swiss in their appearance. Five minutes’ walk from the village, we come to an ancient five-sided stone tower called Spaniola. In documents of the twelfth and fourteenth centuries we find mention of families inhabiting this valley bearing the names De Ponte Sarisino, Sarracino, Sarazeno, and the like. Saratz is still a very common surname in the district, and those bearing it claim descent from the Saracens, and possess a marked oriental type of feature.^ A Herr Saratz is now president of the Gott- haus Bund, the Eastern division of the Grisons.
In the neighbourhood of Pontresina there are several names apparently of Arabic origin, such as Samaden, Alvenen, Albigna, Tarasp, Al-Vaschein, Mad-ul-ein, and the Val Ain-as. The river which flows from the Maloja on the Italian side is called the Maira. Near the Swiss frontier a barrier of roches moutonees blocks up this valley so completely that it has been necessary to excavate a considerable tunnel through the rock to admit of the passage of the road. On the summit of this admirable defensive position stands a ruined castle, which goes by the name of Castel Muro, and an ancient building by the side of the castle exhibits certain Saracenic features which are in striking contrast with the Italian architecture around.^
To the west of Pontresina is the Scaletta pass, which leads to the valley of the Upper Rhine. A local tradition affirms that the Scaletta owes its name to the bleaching skeletons of a band of marauding Moors from Pontresina, who were defeated by the men of Chur, and whose corpses they left strewn over the mountain side where they fell in the attempted flight across the pass. The encounter is supposed to have taken place at the foot of the pass, on the western side, where there is a pasture which still goes by the name of Kriegsmatten, the “ battle-field.” Whether there be truth in this tradition or not,^ it testifies to the popular belief in the existence of a Moorish colony in the valleys of the Bernina, and it harmonises well with the curious evidence supplied by the still existing local names
^ Lechner, Piz Languard^ pp. 12, 13. There are also at Bergamo families called Saratz.
* In the summer of 1862 I made diligent inquiries of the peasantry in the neighbourhood of Castel Muro, but could discover no traditions of Saracenic occupation resembling those which are current at Pontresina.
® More probably the Scaletta is the “ Staircase pass.
On the subject of the Moors in Switzerland, see Engelhardt, Das Monte Rosa und Matterhorn Gebirg ; Lechner, Piz Languard, pp. 12, 13; Reinaud, Invasion des Sarazins ; Wenrich, Rerum ah Arabibus gestarum Commentarii ; Stanley, Sinai and Palestine, p. 15.
CHAPTER VII
THE ANGLO-SAXONS
England is the land of inclosnres — ^This denoted by the character of Anglo- Saxon Names which end in “ ton,” “ yard,” ” worth,” ” fold,” ” hay,” and “ bury ” — Ham, the home — ^The Patronymic ” ing ” — ^Teutonic clans — Saxon colony near Boulogne — Saxon settlement in England began before the departure of the Romans — Early Frisian settlement in Yorkshire — Litus Saxonicum near Caen — German village-names in France and in Italy — Patronymics in Westphalia, Franconia, and Swabia — Seat of the ” Old-Saxons.”
England is pre-eminently the land of hedges and inclosures. On a visit to the Continent almost the first thing the tourist notices is the absence of the hedgerows of England. The fields, nay even the farms, are bounded only by a furrow. The bare shoulders of the hills offend an eye familiar with the picturesque wooded skyline of English landscape, the rectangular strips of cultivation are intolerable, and the interminable monotony of the plains, varied only by the straight rows of formal poplars which stretch for miles and miles by the side of the chaussee^ is inexpressibly wearisome to those who have been accustomed to quaint, irregular crofts, and tall, straggling hedgerows, twined with clematis and honeysuckle —
Little lines of sportive wood run wild,”
overshadowed here and there by gnarled oaks and giant elms.
And if we compare the local names in England with those on the Continent, we shall find that for more than a thousand years England has been distinctively and pre-eminently the land of inclosures. The suffixes which occur most frequently in Anglo-Saxon names denote an inclosure of some kind — some- thing hedged, walled in, or protected. An examination of these names shows us that the love of privacy, and the seclusive- ness of character which is so often laid to the charge of English- men, prevailed in full force among the races which imposed names upon our English villages.^ Those universally recurring
^ This characteristic of the Teutonic race did not escape the acute observation of Tacitus. Colunt discreti ac diversi, ut fons, ut campus, ut nemus placuit. Vicos locant, non in nostrum morem connexis et cohaeren- tibus aedificiis: suam quisque domum spatio circumdat. Germania^ § i6.
99
lOO
Words and Places
terminations ton, ham^ worth, stoke, fold, garth, park, burgh, bury, brough, borrow, all convey the notion of in closure or pro- tection. The prevalence of these suffixes in English names proves also how intensely the nation was imbued with the principle of the sacred nature of property and how eager every man was to possess some spot which he could call his own, and guard from the intrusion of every other man. Even among those portions of the Teutonic race which remained on the Continent, we do not find that this idea of private right has been manifested in local names to the same extent as in England. The feeling seems, indeed, to have been more or less enchorial, for we find strong indications of it even in the pure Celtic names of Britain. Probably more than one half of the Celtic names in Wales and Ireland contain the roots llan, kil, or bally, all of which originally denoted an inclosure of some kind. The Teutonic suffixes which do not denote inclosures, such as gau, dorf, leben, hausen, stadt, and stein, all so numerous in Germany, are not reproduced in England to anything like the same extent as on the Continent. It would seem, therefore, that the love of inclosure is due more or less to the Celts who were gradually absorbed among the Saxon colonists.
The suffix ton constitutes a sort of test-word by which we are enabled to discriminate the Anglo-Saxon settlements. It is the most common termination of English local names; and although it is a true Teutonic word, yet there is scarcely a single instance of its occurrence throughout the whole of Ger- many.^ It appears in two small Anglo-Saxon settlements on the French coast,^ and it is found not unfrequently in Sweden ® — a fact which may lead to the establishment of a connection, hitherto unsuspected, between the Anglo-Saxon colonists of England and the tribes which peopled Eastern Scandinavia.®
^The overwhelming number of surnames derived from these local suffixes is witnessed by the saw preserved by Verstegan: —
In Foord, in Ham, in Ley, in Tun,
The most of English surnames run.
Restitution of Decayed Intelligence, p. 326.
^ See Leo, Anglo-Saxon N antes ^ P- 7i-
* We have, however, Altona, near Hamburg, and Ost- and West-tonne in Westphalia.
^E.g. Colincthun, Alencthun, and Todincthun. See p. no; and Appendix B.
* E.g, Eskilstuna, Sollentuna, Wallentuna, Sigtuna, and Frotuna. See Bender, Ortsnamen, pp. 54, 135; Forstemann, Altdeutsches Namenbuch, vol. ii. p. 1414; Pott, Personen-Namenj p. 76.
® Sweden takes its name from the Suiones who peopled it. The Suiones are probably identical with the Suevi or Swabians, who, as will be shown, contributed largely to the Teutonic colonisation of England.
lOl
The Anglo-Saxons
The primary meaning of the suffix ton is to be sought in the Gothic tains ^ the old Norse teinn, and the Frisian tene, all of which mean a twig — a radical signification which survives in the phrase ‘‘ the tine of a fork.” We speak also of the tines of a stag’s horns. In modern German we find the word zaun, a hedge, and in Anglo-Saxon we have the verb tynan, to hedge. Hence a tun, or ton, was a place surrounded by a hedge, or rudely fortified by a palisade Originally it meant only a single croft, homestead, or farm, and the word retained this restricted meaning in the time of Wicliffe. He translates Matt. xxii. 5, ‘‘ But thei dispiseden, and wenten forth, oon into his toun (dypos), another to his marchaundise.” lliis usage is retained in Scotland, where a solitary farmstead still goes by the name of the toun; and in Iceland, where the homestead, with its girding wall, is called a tun.^ In many parts of England the rickyard is called the hsixton^ — that is, the inclosure for the bear, or crop which the land bears. There are lone farmhouses in Kent called Shottington, Wingleton, Godington, and Apple- ton. But in most cases the isolated ton became the nucleus of a village, and the village grew into a town, and, last stage of all, the word Town has become to denote, not the one small croft inclosed from the forest by the Saxon settler, but the dwelling-place of a vast population, twice as great as that which the whole of Saxon England could boast.^
The Anglo-Saxon yard, and the Norse equivalent garth, contain nearly the same idea as ton. Both denote some place girded round, or guarded. The word tains, a twig, stands in the same etymological relation to ton as the old English word yerde,^ a switch or rod, does to yard, garth, and garden. The inclosure is named from the nature of the surrounding fence.
^ The root is widely diffused through the Aryan languages. Compare the Sclavonic tuin^ a hedge, and even the Armenian tun^ a house. See Diefenbach, Vergleichendes Worterbuch^ vol. ii. pp. 653, 654; Monkhouse, Etymologies, p. 13; Kemble, Codex Diplom. vol. iii. p. xxxix; Leo, Anglo- Saxon Names, pp. 31-37; Mone, Geschichte Heidenthums, vol. ii. p. 95.
* The phrase “ hedging and tining,” for hedging and ditching, was current two hundred years ago. Verstegan, Restitution, p. 326. Brush- wood, used for hedging, is called tinetum in law Latin. Cowel, Law Dictionary, sub voce Tinet ; Bailey, Dictionary, sub voce Tinetum.
®Dufferin, Letters from High Latitudes, p. 46; Dasent, in Oxford Essays for 1858, p. 203.
* In Iceland the hcBrtun. There are some sixty villages in England called Barton or Burton; these must have originally been only outlying rickyards.
* It appears from Domesday that the population of Saxon England was about a million and a half. Turner, Anglo-Saxons, vol. iii. p. 256.
* In old English a yerde means a rod. “ Yet under the yerde was the
102
Words and Places
The same may be said respecting stoke, another common suffix, which we find in Basingstoke and Alverstoke. A stoke is a place stockdidtd, surrounded with stocks or piles. A some- what similar inclosure is denoted by the suffix fold} This was a stall or place constructed of felled trees, for the protection of cattle or sheep.
The Anglo-Saxon weorthig, which appears in English names in the form of worth, bears a meaning nearly the same as that of ton or garth. It denotes a place warded, or protected.^ It was, probably, an inclosed homestead for the churls, subordinate to the tun. We find this suffix in the names of Bosworth, Tam- worth, Kenilworth, Walworth, Wandsworth, and many other places.
A haigh, or hay, is a place surrounded by a hedge, and appears to have been usually an inclosure for the purposes of the chase. We find it in Rothwell Haigh, near Leeds; Haye Park, at Knaresborough; and Horsehay, near Colebrookdale.^ The word park, which is of kindred meaning, seems to have been adopted by the Saxons from the Celtic parwg, an inclosed field. ^
Related to the Anglo-Saxon verb heorgan, and the German
maide.** — Chaucer, Shipmannes Tale. A yard measure is a wand of a fixed length. The yards of a ship are the poles on which the sails are extended. Cf. the German gerte, and the Anglo-Saxon gerd. The Goths and Franks seem to have introduced the word jardin into the French, Spanish, and Italian languages. Of cognate origin are the Albanian gerdine^ the Servian prddena^ the Russian gorod and grad^ and the Persian gird^ a city or forti- fied town. Diez, Etymolog. Worterh. p. 173; Diefenbach, V ergleichendes Worterb. vol. ii. p. 376; Sparschuh, Berichtigungen, p. 53; Pictet, Orig. Indo-Europ. part ii. p. 265.
^ Anglo-Saxon falod.
^ From the Anglo-Saxon warian, to ward or defend. Kemble, Codex Diplom. vol. iii. p. xli; Leo, Anglo-Saxon N antes ^ p. 59. A weir^ which wards off the waters of a river, is from the same root. Wedgwood derives tvorth from the Welsh gwyrdd, green. Philolog. Proc. vol. iv. p. 260. But more probably both gwyrdd and worth are sister words, coming from a common Aryan source. Compare the Sanskrit m, to protect, and the Zend vara, a place hedged round. Pictet, Orig. Indo-Europ. part ii. p. 80.
3 The Hague (correctly *s Gravenhage, the count’s hedge) was originally a hunting-seat of the Orange princes. Cf. the Dutch haag, an inclosure; the old High German hag, a town; the German hagen, to hedge; the French hate, a hedge; and the English ha-ha, and haw-ihovn, or hedge- thorn. Haia is a term often used in Domesday. The source seems to be the Sanskrit kakscha, which means “ bush ” and also a “ fence.” See Diez, Elym. Worterb. p. 656; Leo, Rectitudines, p. 54; Forstemann, Ortsnamen, p. 57; Ellis, Introduction to Domesday, p. xxxvi. The suffixes hagen and hain are common in Hesse. Vilmar, Ortsnamen, p. 269.
* The word park is common to aU the Celtic and Romance languages. See Diez, Etym. Worterb. p. 252; Kemble, Codex Diplom. vol. iii. p. xxxv; Diefenbach, Celtica, i. p. 167; and Diefenbach, V ergleichendes Worterbuch, vol. i. p. 265, where the etymological affinities of park and borough are discussed.
The Anglo-Saxons 103
bergen, to shelter or hide,^ are the suffixes hury^ borough, burgh, brough, and barrow. Sometimes these words denote the funeral mound which gave shelter to the remains of the dead, but more frequently they mean the walled inclosure which afforded refuge to the living. Since such walled places were often on the crests of hills, the word came to mean a hill-fortress, correspond- ing to the Celtic dun. In Anglo-Saxon a distinction was made between beorh, which answers to the German berg, a hill, and buruh, which is the equivalent of the German burg, a town. This distinctive usage is lost in modem English. The word Barrow,^ however, is generally confined to funeral mounds. Burgh, and Brough^ are Anglian and Norse, as are, probably, four-fifths of the boroughs,^ while bury is the distinctively Saxon form.^
The suffix ham, which is very frequent in English names, appears in two forms in Anglo-Saxon documents. One of these, hdm^ signifies an inclosure, that which hems in ’ — a meaning not very different from that of ton or worth. These words express the feeling of reverence for private right, but ham involves a notion more mystical, more holy. It expresses the sanctity of the family bond; it is the Home,® the one secret
^ Compare the phrases to burrow in the earth ; to borrow, i.e. to obtain goods on security; to bury, i.e. to hide in the earth; the bark of a tree is that which hides or covers the trunk. The etymology of borough may be compared with that of the Latin oppidum, the work. Mommsen, Hist, of Rome, vol. i. p. 39.
* E.g. Inglebarrow. ® E.g. Jedburgh, Broughton, Brough.
^E.g. Peterborough, Scarborough, Marlborough.
® This widely diffused Aryan root appears to have been introduced from the Teutonic into the Romance languages. To it we may refer Burgos, Bergamo, Cherbourg, Luxembourg, Perga, Pergamos, and scores of other names spread over Europe and Asia. Gothic baurgs, Greek Tnjpyos, Mace- donian pTupyos. Even the Arabs borrowed burg, a fortress, from the Goths. See Diefenbach, Verg. Wort. vol. i. pp. 262-265 ; Diez, Rom. Gram. vol. i. p. 9; Pictet, Ofig. Indo~Eur. vol. ii. p. 194; Kemble, Codex Diplom. vol. hi. p. xix; Hartshorne, Salopia Antiqua, pp. 245-247; Sparschuh, Bericht. pp. 40, 52.
•This is, for the most part, the source of the Frisian suf&x um, which fringes the coast-line of Hanover and Oldenburgh. In Brunswick and Wolfenbiittel we find Bornww, Ei\um, etc. It occurs in Holstein and part of Sleswic, in the Danish islands Sylt and Fohr, and in the Frisian colony in Yorkshire. See p. 114, infra. Latham, English Lang. vol. i. pp. 125-130; Ethnol. Brit. Is. p. 182. The suffix um is sometimes only the sign of the dative plm*al.
’ Several Bedfordshire villages, as Felmersham, Biddenham, and Blun- ham, which are almost surrounded by the serpentine windings of the Ouse, exhibit this suffix. See Monkhouse, Etymologies, pp. 8-1 1.
® Cf. the German heim, home, which enters so largely into the names of Southern Germany. What a world of inner difference there is between the English word home, and the French phrase chez nous.
Words and Places
104
{geheim) and sacred place. In the Anglo-Saxon charters we frequently find this suffix united with the names of families — never with those of individuals.^ This word, as well as the feeling of which it is the symbol, was brought across the ocean by the Teutonic colonists, and it is the sign of the most precious of all the gifts for which we thank them. It may indeed be said, without exaggeration, that the universal prevalence throughout England of names containing this word Home, ^ives us the clue to the real strength of the national character of the Anglo-Saxons. It has been well observed that it was this supreme reverence for the sanctities of domestic life which gave to the Teutonic nations the power of breathing a new life into the dead bones of Roman civilisation.^
The most important element which enters into Anglo-Saxon names yet remains to be considered. This is the syllable ing? It occurs in the names of a multitude ^ of English villages and hamlets, often as a simple suffix, as in the case of Barking, Brading, Dorking, Hastings, Kettering, Tring, or Woking; but more frequently we find that it forms the medial syllable of the name, as in the case of Buckingham, Birmingham, Kensing- ton, Islington, Haddington, or Wellington.®
^ Leo, Anglo-Saxon Names, p. 37.
* Kemble, Anglo-Saxons, vol. i. p. 231; Turner, Anglo-Saxons, vol. i. p. 189. On the suffixes ham and ham see Kemble, Codex Diplom. vol. iii. pp. xxvii, xxviii; Leo, ^Rectitudines, pp. 30-33; Diefenbach, Vergleich. Worterb. vol. ii. pp. 499-501; Pictet, Orig. Indo-Europ. part ii. pp. 290, 291. With ham compare the Gothic haims, the Lithuanian kaimas, and the Greek /CC6/477, a village. The ultimate root seems to be the Sanskrit pi, to repose. Cf. Keifiai and KOifxd(a.
® On the root ing see Forstemann, AU-deutsches Namenbuch, vol. ii. p. 835 ; Fdrstemann, Ortsnamen, pp. 178, 204, 245; Grimm, Gesch. d. Deut. Spr. p. 775; Deut. Gram. vol. ii. pp. 349-352; Kemble, Saxons in England-, vol. i. pp. 56-63, and 445-480; Kemble, in Philolog. Proceedings, vol. iv. pp. .1-9; Guest, in ib. vol. i. p. 117; Pott, Personen-Namen, pp. 169, 247, 553; Crichton, Scandinavia, vol. i. p. 160; Zeuss, Herkunft der Baiern, pp. xii, xxiii, xxxv; Massmann, in Dorow’s Denkmdler alter Sprache und Kunst, vol. i. pp. 185-187; Schott, Deut. Col. p. 211; Max Muller, Lectures on Language, 2nd series, p. 16; Latham, Ethnol. Brit. Is. p. 241, seq. ; Latham, Eng. Lang. vol. i. p. in ; Meyer, Ortsnamen, p. 139; Bender, Ortsnamen, pp. 103, 104; Vilmar, Ortsnamen, pp. 264, 265; Buttmann, Ortsnamen, p. 2; Wright, Celt, Roman, and Saxon, pp. 438-441; Edin- burgh Review, vol. cxi. pp. 374 - 376 ; Donaldson, English Ethnography, p. 61.
* In about one-tenth of the whole number.
® Mr. Kemble has compiled a list of 1329 English names which contain this root. To ascertain the completeness of the enumeration, the ordnance maps of three counties — Kent, Sussex, and Essex — were carefully searched, and it was discovered that Mr. Kemble had overlooked no less than fort}'^- seven names in Kent, thirty-eight in Sussex, and thirty-four in Essex. If the omissions in other counties are in the same ratio, the total number of
The Anglo-Saxons 105
This syllable ing was the usual Anglo-Saxon patronymic. Thus we read in the Saxon Chronicle (a.d. 547) : —
Ida wses Eopping, Eoppa waes Esing, Esa wass Inguing, Ingui, Angenwiting.
Ida was Eoppa’s son, Eoppa was Esa’s son, Esa was Ingwy’s son, Ingwy, Angenwit’s son.
In fact the suffix ing in the names of persons had very much the same significance as the prefix Mac in Scotland, in Ireland, Ap in Wales, or Beni among the Arabs. A whole clan or tribe, claiming to be descended from a real or mythic progenitor, or a body of adventurers attaching themselves to the standard of some chief, were thus distinguished by a common patronymic or clan ^ name.
The family bond, which, as we have seen, was so deeply rever- enced by the Anglo-Saxon race, was the ruling power which directed the Teutonic colonisation of this island. The Saxon immigration was, doubtless, an immigration of clans. The head of the family built or bought a ship, and embarked in it with his children, his freedmen, and his neighbours, and established a family colony on any shore to which the winds might carry him.^ The subsequent Scandinavian colonisation was, on the other hand, wholly or mainly effected by soldiers of fortune, who aban- doned domestic ties at home, and, after a few years of piracy, settled down with the slave women whom they had carried off from the shores of France, Spain, or Italy, or else roughly wooed the daughters of the soil which their swords had conquered.^ Thus the Scandinavian adventurers Grim, Orm, Hacon, or Asgar, left their names at Grimsby, Ormsby, Haconby, and Asgarby; whereas in the Saxon districts of the island we find the names, not of individuals, but of clans. It is these family settlements which are denoted by the syllable ing. Hence we perceive the value of this word as an instrument of historical research. In a great number of cases ^ it enables us to assign to each of the
these names would be about 2200. Large additions might also be made from Domesday Book. The Exon and Ely Domesdays alone contain thirty-six names not given by Mr. Kemble.
^ It may be observed that the etymology of the word clan proves the patriarchal nature of the Scottish clans. It is derived from the Gaelic cluin, children. Pictet, Orig. Indo-Europ. pt. ii. p. 386; Newman, Regal Rome, p. 49.
^ See Thrupp, Anglo-Saxon Home, p. 178.
^See Thrupp, Anglo-Saxon Home, p. 319; St. John, Four Conquests, vol. i. p. 306.
* The syllable ing has sometimes a topographic rather than a patronymic signification. Thus, in the Chronicle and the Charters, mention is made of the Centings, or men of Kent, the Brytfordings, or men of Bradford, and
io6
Words and Places
chief German clans its precise share in the colonisation of the several portions of our island.
In investigating the local topography of England, we con- stantly meet with the names of families whose deeds are cele- brated in the mythic or legendary history of the Teutonic races. ^ Thus members of a Frankish clan — the Myrgings, or Maurings, of whom we read in the “ Traveller's Song/' and who, at a later time, are familiar to us as the Merovingian dynasty of France — seem to have settled in England at Herring in Notting- hamshire, and at Herrington in Durham and Shropshire The ; family of the Harlings, whose deeds are also chronicled in the
Traveller's Song," are met with at Harling, in Norfolk and in Kent, and at Harlington, in Bedfordshire and Middlesex. The families of the Brentings, the Scylfings ^ (a Swabian race), the Banings, the Haelsings, the Hocings,^ and the Scaerings, which are all mentioned in Beowulf or in the “ Traveller's Song," ^ are found at Brentingley, Shilvington, Banningham, Helsington, j Hacking, Woking, and Sherringham; and the Scyldings ® — a Danish family, to which Beowulf himself belonged — ^are found at Skelding in Yorkshire. In the Edda and in Beowulf we read of the Waelsings,'^ whom we find settled at Wokingham in Norfolk, Woolsingham in Durham, and Wokingham in North- umberland. The Thurings, a Visigothic clan,® mentioned by i Marcellinus, Jomandes, and Sidonius Apollonaris, are found at Thorington in Suffolk and Thorrington in Essex. The Silings,
the Bromleagings, or men of Bromley. Sometimes, as Mr. Kemble and Dr. Massmann think, the suffix ing has simply the force of the genitive singular. Kemble, in Philolog. Proc. vol. iv. pp. 1-9; Massmann, in Dorow^s Denkmalety vol. i. p. 186; Forstemann, Orisnamen^ p. 178. Occasionally it denotes a meadow.
^ The same patronymics which occur in local names were borne by persons mentioned in ancient German charters and other documents. Forstemann collects 270 such names from documents of the eighth, ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries. Alt- Deutsches Namenbuch, vol. i. p. 782.
* Miillenhoff, in HaupFs Zeitschrift, vol. vi. pp. 430-435 ; Kemble, Saxons f vol. i. p. 469; Zeuss, Herkunft der Baiern^ p. xxxv; Latham, English Lang. vol. i. p. 221. See Mone, Geschichte Heidenthums, vol. ii. p. 133, for the Merovingian traditions. The Meringas are also mentioned in a charter. Cod. Dipl. No. 809.
3 Miillenhoff, in Haupt’s Zeitschrift^ vol. vi. p. 431.
*The Hocings are probably the same as the Chauci of Tacitus — the interchange of h to ch or w often takes place, as in the case of the CAatti and Hesse. The Wokings were probably the same as the Hocings. Grimm, Gesch. der Deut. Spr. p. 674.
® Kemble, Saxons, vol. i. pp. 59-63, and 456-478.
® Miillenhoff, in HaupFs Zeitschrift, vol. vi. p. 431.
’ The Waelsings were probably Franks. Latham, Eng. Lang. vol. i. p. 226.
® Muller, Marken, p. 175; Latham, Nationalities, vol. ii. p. 312.
The Anglo-Saxons 107
a Vandal tribe, mentioned by Ptolemy, are found at Selling in Kent. The feelings, the noblest family of Mercia, are found at Icklingham in Suffolk. The Hastings, the noblest race of the Goths, are found at Hastingleigh in Kent, and Hastings in Sussex. The Ardings, the royal race of the Vandals, are found at Ardington in Berkshire, and Ardingley in Sussex; and a branch of the royal Visigothic family is found at Belting in Kent. The Irings, the royal family of the Avars, ^ are found at Erringham in Sussex, and at Errington in Yorkshire. The Varini, who are placed by Tacitus in juxtaposition with the Angli, are found at Warrington in Lancashire and Bucks, and at Werrington in Devon and Northamptonshire. The Billings, who were the royal race of the Varini, ^ seem, as might have been anticipated, to have profited extensively by the conquest of England, for we find their name in no less than thirteen places, as Billinge, Billingham, Billingley, Billington, and Billingshurst. The ^scings, the royal race of Kent, are likewise found in thirteen places. Some families seem to have spread much more widely than others. Of many only an isolated local name bears witness, some are confined to a single county, while the names of others, as the ^Escings and the Billings, are spread far and wide throughout the island.^
Where the patronymic stands without any suffix, as in the case of Mailing, Basing, or Hastings, Mr. Kemble thinks that we have the original settlement of the clan, and that the names to which the suffixes ham or ton are applied mark the filial colonies sent out from this parent settlement. This theory is not, perhaps, altogether carried out by a study of the names, but it certainly derives considerable support from the way in which these patronymics are distributed throughout the English
^ Piderit, Ortsnamen, p. 31 1.
^ Lappenberg, Anglo-Saxon Kings, vol. i. p. 213. In the earliest records, however, the Billings are mythological rather than historical. The first undoubtedly historical Billing died in the year 967. The root hil signifies gentleness. Billich is Equity personified. Cf. the modem German billig, cheap. The name Billingsgate may perhaps be thus explained. Grimm, Deut. Mythol. p. 347.
®The Cyllings and the Wealings are found in twelve places; the Dodings, the Wittings, and the Willings, in eleven; the Ofings in ten; the Donings and the Sillings in nine; the Edings, the Ellings, the Hardings, and the Lings in eight ; the Fearings, the Hemings, the Herrings, the Holings, the Hornings, the Newings, the Serings, and the Wasings in seven; the Cannings, the Cerrings, the Hastings, the Lullings, the Hannings, the Stannings, the Teddings, the Tarings, and the Withings, in six; the Bennings, the Bings, the Bobbings, the Caedings, the Collings, the Gillings, and the Stellings, in five, and the remaining 400 or 500 patronymics in four or a smaller number of places.
E 517
io8
Words and Places
counties. By a reference to the subjoined table, it will be seen that the names of the former class are chiefly to be found in the south-eastern districts of the island, where the earliest Teu- tonic settlements were formed, namely, in Kent, Sussex, Essex, Middlesex, Norfolk, Suffolk, and the adjacent counties, and that they gradually diminish in frequency as we proceed to- wards the northern and western counties. Still farther to the west, as in Gloucestershire and Warwickshire, the names of the former class are very rare; those of the second abound. In the semi-Celtic districts of Derbyshire, Devonshire, and Lanca- shire names of either class become scarce, while in Cumberland, Westmoreland, Cornwall, and Monmouth they are wholly or almost wholly wanting. On Mr. Kemble’s hypothesis this remarkable distribution of these names would accord with the supposition that the Saxon rule was gradually extended over the western and central districts by the cadets of families already settled in the island, and not by fresh immigrants arriving from abroad.
From the lists given by Mr. Kemble the following table has been compiled, so as to represent the proportion of names of these two classes to the acreage of the several counties. The absolute numbers are not given, since the varying sizes of the counties would vitiate the results : —
|
Original Settle- ments. |
Filial Colonies |
Original Settle- ments. |
Filial Colonies |
|||
|
Kent .... |
22 |
29 |
Derbyshire . |
3 |
15 |
|
|
Sussex .... |
21 |
41 |
Gloucestershire |
2 |
46 |
|
|
Middlesex . |
l8 |
38 |
Northumberland |
2 |
32 |
|
|
Essex .... |
l8 |
24 |
Leicestershire . |
2 |
29 |
|
|
Norfolk .... |
15 |
46 |
Buckinghamshire |
2 |
28 |
|
|
Suffolk .... |
13 |
36 |
Warwickshire . |
I |
44 |
|
|
Bedfordshire . |
12 |
51 |
Somerset . |
I |
35 |
|
|
Huntingdonshire . |
II |
46 |
Salop |
I |
33 |
|
|
Berkshire . |
9 |
29 |
Wiltshire |
I |
23 |
|
|
Siurey .... |
9 |
22 |
Devonshire |
12 |
||
|
Hertfordshire . |
6 |
14 |
Rutland |
0 |
36 |
|
|
Northamptonshire |
5 |
41 |
Cheshire |
0 |
31 |
|
|
Oxfordshire |
4 |
51 |
Worcestershire |
0 |
24 |
|
|
Nottinghamshire . |
4 |
31 |
Herefordshire . |
0 |
23 |
|
|
Hampshire |
4 |
23 |
Staffordshire . |
0 |
22 |
|
|
Lincolnshire |
3 |
34 |
Durham |
0 |
21 |
|
|
Cambridgeshire |
3 |
29 |
Cumberland |
0 |
5 |
|
|
Yorkshire . |
3 |
26 |
Westmoreland . |
0 |
3 |
|
|
Dorsetshire |
3 |
25 |
Cornwall |
0 |
2 |
|
|
Lancashire . |
3 |
16 |
Monmouth . |
0 |
0 |
The Anglo-Saxons 109
For the preceding results no great amount of novelty can be claimed, since they are based mainly on the researches of Mr. Kemble, and of Professor Leo of Halle.
But, having occasion, for another purpose, to make a minute examination of the sheets of the large government survey of France, I was startled by a remarkable phenomenon, which, so
far as I can ascertain, seems hitherto to have escaped the notice which it deserves. In the old French provinces of Picardy and Artois there is a small well-defined district, about the size of Middlesex, lying between Calais, Boulogne, and St. Omer, and fronting the English coast, in which the name of almost every village and hamlet is of the pure Anglo-Saxon type ; and not only so, but the names are, most of them, identically the same with village-names to be found in England. To e^iibit graphically the distribution of these Saxon villages the above sketch-map has been constructed. Each dot represents the position of one of the Saxon names.
I lO
Words and Places
Thus we have in the
French District. Corresponding English Names.
Warhem Warham, Norfolk.
Rattekot Radcot, Oxon.
Le Wast ..... Wast, Gloucestershire, Northumberland.
Frethun Fret on, Norfolk.
Cohen, Cuhem, and Cuhen. Cougham, Norfolk.
Hollebeque Holbeck, Notts, Yorks, Lincoln.
Ham, Hame, Hames . . Ham, Kent, Surrey, Essex, Somerset.
Werwick Warwick, Warwick, Cumberland.
Appegarbe Applegarth, Dumfries.
Sangatte Sandgate, Kent.
Guindal Windle, Lancashire.
Inghem Ingham, Lincoln, Norfolk, Middlesex.
Oye Eye, Suffolk, Hereford, Northmptonsh., Oxon.
Wimille ^ Windmill, Kent.
Grisendale Grisdale, Cumberland, Lancashire.
We have also such familiar English forms as Graywick^, the River Slack, Bruquedal, Marbecq, Longfosse, Dalle, Vendal, Salperwick, Fordebecques, Staple, Crehem, Pihem, Dohem, i Roqueton, Hazelbrouck, and Roebeck. Twenty-two of the names have the characteristic suffix -ton, which is scarcely to be found elsewhere upon the Continent,^ and upwards of one ' hundred end in ham, hem, or hen. There are also more than one | hundred patronymics ending in ing. A comparison of these I patronymics with those found in England proves, beyond a j doubt, that the colonisation of this part of France must have been effected by men bearing the clan-names which belonged to the Teutonic families which settled on the opposite coast.^ More than eighty per cent, of these French patronymics are also found in England.
^ Sankey, Portefeuille, p. 53, refers this very remarkable name to the time of the occupation of Boulogne by the Enghsh in the sixteenth century.
I cannot doubt that it is an evidence of a much earlier connection.
* See p. 100, supra.
® A few phonetic changes are worthy of notice. We find ham once or twice close to the coast — the usual form, however, is hem — and further inland it changes to hen ; while ing is sometimes changed into eng or inc, and gay into gue. The suffix gay which we find in Framlingay, Gamlingay, etc., is found abundantly in those parts of Germany from whence the Saxons emigrated. It there takes the form gau. This word originally denoted a forest clearing, hence afterwards it came to mean the primary settlement with independent jurisdiction, like the Cymric tref. Palgrave, English Commonwealth, vol. i. p. 88; Forstemann, Ortsnamen, p. 63.
The Anglo-Saxons
1 1 1
Thus we have
|
In France. |
In England. |
|
Alencthun . , . . |
|
|
Bazingham . . . . |
|
|
Balinghem . . . . |
|
|
Berlinghen . . . . |
, . Birlingham, Worcester. |
|
Colincthun . . . . |
|
|
Elingehen |
|
|
Eringhem |
|
|
Hardinghem , . . . |
|
|
Linghem |
|
|
Lozinghem . . . . |
|
|
Maninghem . . . . |
|
|
Masinghen |
|
|
Pelincthun |
|
|
Todincthnn . . . . |
|
|
Velinghen |
A more detailed comparison of these patronymics will be found in the appendix/ and to this the attention of the student is specially requested. It is confidently believed that such a comparison will render it impossible not to admit that the same families which gave their names to our English villages must have also made a settlement on that part of the French coast which lies within sight of the English shore.
The question now arises whether the Saxons^ as they coasted along from the mouths of the Rhine, made the Boulogne colony a sort of halting-place or stepping-stone on their way to Eng- land, or whether the French settlement was effected by cadets belonging to families which had already established themselves in this island. In favour of the latter view we may adduce the entire absence of Saxon names from that part of the coast which lies to the north-east of Cape Grisnez. Why should the intending settlers have passed along this stretch of coast, and have left it entirely untouched ? The map ^ shows conclusively that the colonists did not arrive from the east, but from the west — the Saxon names radiate, so to speak, from that part of the coast which fronts England. And the names are arranged exactly as they would have been if the invaders had set sail from Hythe for the cliffs on the horizon. The district about St. Omer was evidently colonised by men who landed, not in the neighbourhood of Dunkerque, but in the neighbourhood
Appendix B.
• See p. 109, supra.
I I 2
Words and Places
of Boulogne.^ Again, if any importance is to be attached to i Mr. Kemble’s theory of original and filial settlements, ^ the j Saxon villages in France must all have been filial settlements, \ We find that ing is never a mere suffix ; in every case it forms | the medial syllable of the name.
On the other hand, it may be said that these names mark the position of the “ Litus Saxonicum in Belgica Secunda ” — the coast settlement of the Saxons in Flanders — ^which is mentioned in the Notitia Imperii. This Litus Saxonicum existed as early as the third century, and therefore, it may be urged, its foundation must have been long anterior in date to the Saxon colonisation of Britain, which, according to the I chroniclers, commenced in the fifth century, with the arrival of Hengist and Horsa. Eutropius informs us that the Emperors Diocletian and Maximian appointed Carausius, “ apud Bono- niam” (Boulogne), to protect the Flemish coast and the adjoining sea, “ quod Saxones infestabant.” Carausius was a Menapian, that is, a native of the islands near the mouth of the Rhine. ^
He was probably one of those pirates whose incursions he was appointed to suppress. Carausius, it would seem, entered into a compact with his Saxon kinsmen, and promoted their settle- ment, as subsidised naval colonists, in the neighbourhood of his fortress at Boulogne.^
It may be said, in reply, that the date ordinarily assigned for the commencement of the Saxon colonisation of Britain is too late by at least a couple of centuries. Even in the time of Agricola the Saxon piracy had begun. ^ In the south-east of England a Saxon immigration seems to have been going on in silence during the period of the Roman rule.® Without suppos- ing, as some inquirers have done, that the Belgae, whom Caesar found in Britain, were Low Germans in blood and speech, we
^ As if to preclude all doubt, at some distance island, on the northern border of the Saxon colony, we find the village of Marck, a name which always indicated an ethnological frontier. See Chapter X.
* See p. io8, supra.
® Palgrave, English Commonwealth, vol. i. p. 375.
^ Lappenberg, England under the Anglo-Saxon Kings, vol. i. pp. 44-47; Zeuss, Die Deutschen, pp. 381, 384; Gough’s Camden, vol. i. p. 308; Leo,
V orlesungen, vol. i. p. 267; Turner, Anglo-Saxons, vol. i. p. 145; Depping, Expeditions Maritimes, vol. i. p. 84; Warnkonig, Flandrische Staats- geschichte, vol. i. p. 91.
® Poste, Britannic Researches, p. 20.
® Haigh, Conquest of Britain, pp. 161-166. The Roman Legions stationed in Britain were composed mainly of Germans. This must have introduced a considerable German element into the population. Leo,
V orlesungen, vol. i. p. 268 ; Wright, On the Ethnology of South Britain at the extinction of the Roman Government. Essays, vol. i. pp. 70, 71.
The Anglo-Saxons 113
may suppose that, after the extermination of the Iceni, the desolated lands of Eastern Britain were occupied by German colonists. In Essex and Suffolk there is a smaller proportion of Celtic names than in any other district of the island, and this would indicate that the Germanisation of those counties is of very ancient date. Gildas, Nennius, and Beda, among all their lamentations over the “ destruction of Britain ” by the Jutish and Saxon invaders, are strangely silent as to any settlements on the eastern coast, where, from geographical considerations, we might have expected that the first brunt of invasion would be felt. While we can trace the progress of the Saxons in the western and central districts of England, with respect to the east both the British bards and the Saxon chroniclers are dumb. They tell us of no conquests, no defeats.^ Descents had, how- ever, been made, for we learn from Ammianus Marcellinus that, nearly a century before the date assigned by Beda for the land- ing of Hengist and Horsa, London was taken by Saxon invaders, who slew the Duke of Britain and the Count of the Saxon shore.
This name alone might suffice to set the question at rest. Even before the time of Constantine, there was in England, as well as in Flanders, a Litus Saxonicum, or Saxon coast settle- ment, which extended from Brancaster in Norfolk as far as Shoreham in Sussex.^ The Roman names of the places in this district seem in some cases to be referable to Teutonic rather than Celtic roots. The modem name of Reculvers probably approximates very closely to the original word which was Latinised into Regulbium, and it suggests the settlement of a Teuton named Raculf.^ The name of Dover,^ Latinised into Dubris, reminds us of Douvres in the Saxon shore near Bayeux, and of Dovercourt in the intensely Teutonised district near Harwich, as well as of the Dovrefjeld in Norway, and Thanet, also a Teutonic name, appears in the pages of Solinus, an author certainly not later than the fourth century.
There are several concurrent indications that the district of Holdemess was occupied by Teutonic settlers before the close
^ Palgrave, English Commonwealth, vol. i. p. 413.
^ Giimm, Gesch. d. Deut. Spr. p. 625; Palgrave, English Common- wealth, vol. i. pp. 389, 412 ; St. John, Four Conquests, vol. i. p. 44; Latham, Ethnology of Brit. Is. p. 199; Donaldson, English Ethnog. p. 45.
* The name of the British usurper, Tetricus, whose date is about 270 a.d., appears to be only the German name Dietrich in a Latinised form. Haigh, Conquest of Britain, p. 162.
The root may be the Anglo-Saxon Ofer, shore, with a preposition, or the definite article prefixed. The usual derivation is from the Celtic dufr, water. Gluck, Kelt. Namen, p. 35; Zeuss, Die Deutschen, p. 575.
Words and Places
114
of the Roman rule. Holdemess is a fertile tract of some 250 square miles, bounded on the north, east, and south by the sea and the Humber, and on the west by the Wolds, which were probably a frontier of wooded and impenetrable hills. ^ In this district Ptolemy places a people whom he calls the Hapto-ot. Grimm has shown that the old German p is interchangeable in Latin with /, the aspirated form of the same letter. ^ This would lead us to identify the HapLo-oi with the F-risii or Frisians.^ In the same district Ptolemy places Petuaria, a name which cannot be explained from Celtic sources, but which points undoubtedly to the German root wcere — inhabitants, which appears in Cantware, Wihtware, and so many other names Nor is this all, for Ptolemy gives us a third name in the district of Holdemess, Gabrantoz;zmrum Sinus, which must be either Filey Bay or Bridlington Bay. Now this word contains the root vicy which was the appellation of a bay in the language of the vikings or Bay-men who, at a later period, descended in such numbers from the Frisian region.^
There seems therefore to be good ground for assigning for the commencement of the Saxon settlements in Britain a date anterior to the time of Carausius,® and we may believe that the Saxon settlement in Flanders may be partly due to the energetic measures by which he compelled or induced the Saxon pirates, who were establishing themselves on the British coast, to seek a new home beyond the Channel.
There was also a third Litus Saxonicum, in the neighbourhood of Caen, and which extended as far as the islands at the mouth of the Loire,^ where the population still retains the distinctive
^ The name Holdemess means a wooded promontory. The Wolds are “ the woods.’’ Cf. the German wald.
2 Gesch. d. Deut. Spy. p. 394.
®The Frisian form of ham is um. See p. 103, supra. Holdemess is the only part of England where this form occurs. Here we find the village-names Aig-am, News-ow, Holl-yw, Arr-am, Rys-om Garth, and Ulrow^, as well as Owstwick, another Frisian form. The village of Frismersk is now washed away. Poulson, Hist, of Holdemess, vol. ii. p. 528-
* See p. 65, supra. Ptolemy also gives us a Vand-war-ia, near the wall, apparently a settlement of some tribe of Vandals or Wends.
® Cf. Wright, On the Remains of a Primitive People in the South-east of Yorkshire. Essays, vol. i. p. i; Latham, English Lang. vol. i. pp. 5, 6; Poulson, Hist, of Holdemess, vol. i. pp. 4-9.
® The date usually assigned to the landing of Hengist and Horsa is 449 A.D. The Saxons took London in 367. Carausius was appointed in 287. The latest writer on the subject places the commencement of the Saxon colonisation “ three or four centuries ” before 449. Thrupp, Anglo- Saxon Home, p. 4.
7 Zeuss, Die Deutschen, p. 386; Lappenberg, Anglo-Saxon Kings, vol. i.
The Anglo-Saxons 1 1 5
outward marks of Saxon blood.^ The Swabian Iceti who, as we learn from the Notitia, were settled at Bajoccas (Bayeux) may have formed the nucleus of this settlement. In the year 843 the annalists mention the existence of a district in this neighbourhood called Otlinga ^ Saxonica, and Gregory of Tours speaks of the Saxones bajocassini. This Saxon settlement dates from the third century, and its formation was probably contemporaneous with that of the colony in Picardy. By the aid of local names we can still trace its sharply defined boundaries.^
It will be seen that in the departments- of the Eure and of the Seine Inferieure, where the Danish names of a later period are so thickly clustered, hardly a single Saxon name is to be found, while in the department of the Calvados, and in the central portion of La Manche, where the Danish names are comparatively scarce, their place is occupied by names of the Saxon type. The Northmen seem to have respected the tenure of their Teutonic kinsmen, and to have dispossessed only the Celtic tribes who dwelt to the east and north-west of the Saxon colony. The artificial landscape in this Saxon district is of a thoroughly English type. The sketcher might imagine himself in Devon- shire or Kent. The country is divided by thick hedgerows into small irregular crofts, and the cottages are unmistakably English rather than French in structure and appearance.^
In this neighbourhood we find the village-names of Sassetot (Saxons’-field), Hermanville, Etreham, or Ouistreham ^ (Wester- ham), Hambye,® Le Ham, Le Hamelet, Cottun (cows’ yard), Etainhus, Heuland (highland), Plumetot (Blomfield or Flower- field), Douvres, on “ the shore,” which reminds us of our own Dover, and Caen, which was anciently written Cathem and
pp. 44, 46; Anglo-Norman Kings, p. 23; Latham, Channel Is. p. 313; Ethnol. Brit. Is. p. 197; Nationalities of Europe, vol. ii. pp. 21, 292; Depping, Expeditions Maritimes, vol. i. pp. 84, 85; Petersen, Recherches, p. 44.
^ Louth, Wanderer in Western France, p. 292.
^ This phrase, which has elicited so many ingenious etymological guesses, does not mean the district where the Saxon language was spoken, but, as Grimm has suggested, it was the abode of Saxon nobles, Adalings or Mthelings. — Gesch. der Deut. Sprach. p. 626. See Donaldson, English Ethnog. p. 45; Depping, Expeditions, vol. i. p. 85; and compare the name of Athelney, which in the Saxon Chronicle (a.d. 878) is written ABthelinga-igge, the isle of the ^thelings.
* See the sketch map of Normandy in the next chapter.
^ These two characteristic features of Saxon colonisation are also to be noted in the Litus Saxonicum near Boulogne.
* La Roquette, Noms en Normandie, p. 56.
® This mongrel growth is apparently a Danish graft on a Saxon stock.
ii6 Words and Places
Catheim.^ There are also about thirty Saxon patronymics. It is curious to observe in how many cases we find the same families on the opposite coast of Hants^ Dorset, Devon, and Cornwall. In the whole of Cornwall there are only two patronymic names, and both of these are also found among the thirty on the opposite coast.
We have the
|
Families of the |
Near Bayeux at |
In England at |
|
|
Berrings . . . . |
J Berengeville |
. /Berrington, Dur., Glouc.t |
|
|
t Berigny . |
( Salop, Worcester. |
||
|
Bellings . . . . |
Bellinger, Hants. |
||
|
Basings . . . . |
Basing, Hants. |
||
|
Bobbings |
. Baubigny |
. Bobbing, Kent. |
|
|
Callings . . . . |
. Callington, Cornwall. |
||
|
Ceafings . . . . |
j Chalvington, Sussex. \ Chevington, Suffolk. |
||
|
Cofings . . |
Covington, Huntingdon. |
||
|
Ceardings |
Cartigny . |
f Cardington, Beds., Salop. (Cardingham, Cornwall. |
|
|
Graefings |
Gravigny |
Grayingham, Line, |
|
|
Hardings |
Hardinvast . |
Hardenhuish, Wilts. |
|
|
Ifings . . . . |
, Jevington, Sussex. |
||
|
Essings . . . . |
Issington, Hants. |
||
|
Maerings . . . . |
Marrington, Salop, |
||
|
Potings . . . . |
Podington, Dorset. |
||
|
Seafings . . . . |
Sevington, Kent. |
||
|
Sulings . . . . |
. Soulangy |
Sullington, Sussex. |
|
|
Dhyrings |
. Thorigny * . |
Torrington, Devon. |
Local names are of great value when we attempt to estimate the amount and the distribution of the Teutonic element in the population of France. Any historical notices which might aid us are very vague, and the philological analysis of the modern French vocabulary ^ would give a most inadequate notion
^ La Roquette, Noms en Normandie^ p. 53; Charnock, Local Etym. p. 53. Cat is perhaps a corruption of Goth or Geat, or it may be the proper name Geit.
2 The Gothic igg becomes ing in the Teutonic, and ign in the Romance languages. Grimm, Gesch. Deut. Spr. p. 775.
® Not more than five hundred words were introduced into the French language by the German conquerors. Diez, Gram. d. Rom. Spr. vol. i. p. 52. Most of them are names of weapons and military terms, such as gonfanon, massacre from metzger, a butcher, bivouac from heiwackt, and guerre, from werra, war. Ib. p. 55 ; Max Muller, Lectures, 2nd series, p. 263; Perticari; and Milman, Hist. Latin Christianity, vol. vi. p. 332. The other words are chiefly the names of articles of dress, of beasts of the chase, and terms belonging to the feudal system. Diez, Gram. p. 56; Lewis, Romance Languages, p. 270. To these must be added the points of the compass, nord, sud, est, ouest. The fact that in these cases the Teutonic
The Anglo-Saxons 1 1 7
of the actual numbers of the Frank and Burgundian colonists. In fact, the local names enable us to prove that certain parts of modem France are as thoroughly Teutonic in blood as any portion of our own island.
The Germanisation of France commenced with settlements of subsidised colonists, who were introduced by the Roman rulers to defend the frontier. According to the Notitia there were Batavian Icsti at Arras. The Emperor Julian transported thousands of the Chattuarii, Chamavi, and Frisii, to the neigh- bourhood of Amiens, Beauvais, and Langres.^ The system was continued at a later period. Charlemagne transported into France a vast multitude of Saxons — ^multitudinem Saxon- orum cum mulieribus et inf antibus. ^ After another Saxon conquest he transplanted every third man — tertium hominem — of the vanquished people.^ Many of the German names in France may be due to these forced emigrations,® but by far the greater number are, no doubt, records of the settlements of the Frank and Burgundian conquerors. The area and intensity of this German colonisation may conveniently be traced by means of the patronymic village-names, of which there are more than 1100 in France.®
About 250, or nearly one-fourth, of these clan-names are also to be found in England — the proportional number of identifi- cations being far smaller than in the case of the Litus Saxonicum in Picardy.
terms should have displaced their Romance equivalents is a striking indication of the more mobile habits of the German tribes as contrasted with the stationary life of the Celto-Latin inhabitants. Lewis, Romance Lang. p. 267. The radical meaning of the word west is perhaps the vast, the vastitudo, or great unknown region lying before the conquerors as they advanced from the east. See Pictet, Orig. Indo-Europ. part i. p. 112; Muller, Marken des Vaterl. p. 209. The Romance words introduced into the Teutonic languages are chiefly ecclesiastical, a fact which, connected with the nature of the terms conversely introduced into the Romance languages, suggests curious speculations as to the reciprocal influence of the rude conquerors and their more civilised subjects. See Diez, Gram, d. Rom. Spr. vol. i. p. 58. German was spoken in France more or less for some 400 years after the Teutonic conquest. So late as the year 812 a.d. the Council of Tours ordained that every bishop should be able to preach both in the Romance and Teutonic languages. Diez, Gram. d. Rom. Spr, vol. i. p. 48; Milman, Hist. Latin Christianity ^ vol. vi. p. 341.
^ Probably a Latinisation of the German word Leute^ people. The lathes of Kent are probably a vestige of the laetic organisation.
* Latham, Channel Islands^ p. 343 ; Nationalities of Europe, vol. ii. p. 294.
^ Annul. Laureshamenses, apud Pertz, Mon. Germ. vol. i. p. 38; Wam- konig, Flandrische Staatsgeschichte, vol. i. p. 92.
^ Annul. Laur. Minores, apud Pertz, vol. i. pp. 119, 120.
® Guilmot, quoted by Warnkonig, Flandrische Staatsgesch. vol. i. p. 92, believes all the Flemish patronymics to be due to this cause.
® See Appendix B.
1 1 8 Words and Places
Thus we have the
|
Families of the |
In France at |
In England at |
|
^Fbings |
f Aubinges, Burgundy (3), \ Franche-Comte, Poitou (2) |
J-Abington, Camh. |
|
iEcings |
Acquing, Isle of France . |
Oakington, Camh. |
|
flings |
j Alligny, Burgundy .... |
\ Allington, Dev., Hants., |
|
( Allinges, Burgundy .... |
j Kent. |
|
|
Antings . |
Antigny, Burgundy, Poitou (2) . |
Antingham, Norf. |
|
Arrings |
Arrigny, Champagne |
Arrington, Camh. |
|
BaBlings . |
Balagny, Isle of France . |
Ballingdon, Essex. |
|
Basings . |
( Bazegny, Champagne ( Bazainville, Isle of France , |
1 Basing, Hants. |
|
Beadings . |
Bettigny, Champagne |
Beddingham, Sussex. |
|
Bellings . |
j Belli gneux, Burgundy t Belligni, |
1 Bellinger, Haftts. |
|
Bessings . |
Bissines, Limousin .... |
Bessingham, Norf. |
|
Billings |
Billanges, Limousin .... |
Billing, Northumh. |
|
Bings . . |
Binges, Burgundy .... |
Bing, Suff. |
|
Bobbings . |
( Bobigny, Isle of France . \ Beaubigny, Burgundy |
1 Bobbing, Kent. |
|
Bollings . |
f Boligneux, Burgundy (Bolligney, Fr. -Comte |
|Bollington, Essex. |
|
Bondings . |
Bontigny, Lorraine .... |
Bondington, Somers. |
|
Brantings |
Brantigny, Champagne . |
Br antingham, Yorks. |
The map will give an approximate idea of the distribution of these names.
They cluster most thickly in the old province of Lorraine, where, especially in the departments of the Meurthe and the Moselle, almost every village-name bears witness to the exten- sive colonisation effected by the Frankish conquerors. The Isle of France, especially the department of the Aisne, the Upper Valley of the Loire above Orleans, and the provinces of Franche-Comte and Burgundy, present numerous names of the patronymic class.
It is difficult to account for these resemblances on the ordinary theory that England was colonised exclusively by the Saxons and Angles, and France by the Franks and Burgundians. A large number of Frank adventurers must have joined in the descents which the Saxons made on the English coast : ^ and many Saxons must have found a place in the ranks of the Frankish
^ Dr. Latham thinks that Kent was largely colonised by Franks. English Language^ vol. i. p. 178. Ammianus Marcellinus places Alemanni in Britain. Lappenberg believes that the Saxons were accompanied by large numbers of Franks, Frisians, and Lombards. The Welshman Llywarc Hen uses Frank as an equivalent for Saxon.
The Anglo-Saxons 1 1 9
armies which conquered North-eastern France. The chroniclers, when mentioning the earlier invasions and piratical attacks, attribute them to Franks and Saxons,^ or to Saxons and Lom- bards in conjunction. The tribes between the Rhine and the Elbe — Franks, Saxons, Angles, Sueves, Lombards, and Bur- gundians— ^were probably united by a much closer connection
The towns indicated by initials are Amiens, Caen, Rouen, Paris, Rheims, Treves, Chalons, Troyes, Dijon, Strasbourg, and Ma^on. The shaded district (Alsace) is full of names of the pure German type, few of which, however, are patronymic.
— ethnological, geographical, and political — than historians have hitherto been willing to admit. At all events, the speech of all these invading tribes must have been mutually intelligible.^ Indeed, there seems to be strong reason for believing that the
^ Eutropius, Julian, and Ammianus Marcellinus associate the Franks and Saxons in this manner.
^ Diez, Gram. d. Rom. Spr. vol. i. p. 46; Marsh, History of Eng. Lang. p. 55; Poste, British Researches, p. 74; Donaldson, English Ethnos, p. 61.
I 20
Words and Places
names of Franks Saxon, or Lombard are not true ethnic names, but that they were only the designations of temporary con- federations for military purposes,^ an hypothesis which would be almost reduced to a demonstration if we could succeed in establishing that plausible etymology of these names which makes them descriptive terms relating to the equipment of the invading hosts — ^whether armed with javelin (franca), sword (seax), or partisan (lang-barta),^ This hypothesis, which I was first inclined to reject somewhat cavalierly, has commended itself more and more to my judgment during the progress of a laborious comparison of the village-names of France, Germany, Italy, and England.
Little need be said about the German names in Northern Italy. Paulus Diaconus and Gregory of Tours assert that the conquest was effected by Saxons and Lombards. We find the names of the early Lombard kings are of a pure Anglo- Saxon type. Thus Audouin and Alboin are, no doubt, the same names as Edwin and Elf wine. ^ My friend, Mr. G. P. Marsh, the United States Minister at Turin, has kindly pointed | out to me several clusters of Saxon patronymics in Northern Italy. One of these is to be found on the southern side of the Po, opposite the mouth of the Dora Baltea, where we have the villages of Varengo, Odalengo, Tonengo, Gonengo, and Sca- lenghe. Near Biella there is another cluster of these names — Valdengo, Arbengo, Bolengo, and Ternengo. Near Milan we find Marengo and Morengo; and near Brescia — Bovengo and Pisogne.'^ In the villages of Roncegno and Torcegno, in the Valle Sugana, German is still spoken.^
1 have not succeeded in discovering any undoubtedly Teutonic names in Spain, with the notable exception of Burgos.® Such, however, doubtless exist within the confines of the kingdom
^ See Zeuss, Die Deutschen, pp. 326, 380-384; Sheppard, Fall of Rome, p. 130.
2 See p. 75, supra,
3 Latham, Nationalities of Europe, vol. ii. p. 246.
^Compare the English village-names of Warrington, Athelney (p. 115), Donnington, Connington, Skillington, Waldingfield, Erpinghcim, Boling- broke, Thurning, Marrington, Bovington, Bessingham, Rockingham, and Torkington.
® Latham, Nationalities of Europe, vol. ii. p. 283; Schmeller, Ueher die sogenannten Cimbern, p. 561. The Lombard German was commonly spoken in Northern Italy till the year 800 a.d. Diez, Gram. d. Rom. Spr. vol. i. p. 48.
« And, possibly, Coliunga and Meville, both within the Umits of the Swabian kingdom.
I2I
The Anglo-Saxons
of the Swabian conquerors, which comprised Galicia, the Asturias, and part of Portugal.^
It has been generally assumed that the original home of the Saxons is to be sought in the modern kingdom of Hanover, between the mouths of the Elbe and the Weser. I have made a careful search in this region for names identical or analogous with those which are found in Saxon England. In Westphalia a small group of patronymics was discovered.^ But on the whole the investigation was remarkably barren of results; the names, for the most part, proving to be of an altogether dis- similar type.^ The search was continued over Mecklenburg, Holstein,^ Friesland, and the greater part of Germany. A few sporadic names were found, but always surrounded and out- numbered by names possessing no distinctive Anglo-Saxon character. There is, however, in a most unlikely comer of the Continent, a well-defined district, rather larger than Devon- shire, where the names, though slightly disguised in form, are as characteristically Saxon as those found in the Boulogne Colony. This district is confined chiefly to the Valley of the Neckar, but just crosses the watershed between the Neckar and the Danube. It occupies the northern half of the modem kingdom of Wiirtemberg, and includes a small portion of Bavaria in the neighbourhood of Donauwerth. It also stretches into the state of Baden, between Heidelberg and Bmchsal. It does not extend to the left bank of the Rhine, or to the right bank of the Lower Neckar. In Wiirtemberg, however, it occupies both banks of the Neckar. The railway from Bruchsal to Ulm, with its serpentine windings and fearful gradients, carries the tourist through the centre of this district — ^which has attractions for the artist and the angler, as well as for the ethnologist.^
^ See Grimm, Gesch, d. Deut. Spr. p. 501; Keferstein, Ansichten, vol. ii. p. 313; Zeuss, Die Deutschen, p. 456.
* See Appendix B.
® Names in wick and zvich, so common in England, are found on the Continent only in the Netherlands, Friesland, and old Saxony. Lappen- berg, Anglo-Saxon Kings, vol. i. p. 86. The korsis which abound in Kent and Sussex are found also on the Weser in Westphalia.
^Some curious coincidences between the local names in Kent and in Jutland have been pointed out by Maack, in the Germania, vol. iv. pp. 396-398.
® There are many points of analogy between this part of Germany and England. It is the hop garden and brewery of the Continent. It was in the midst of this district that I met with the only case of downright English beery drunkenness that it has been my lot to encounter during many rambles on the Continent. The people are the only Protestants in South Germany, and they are distinguished by the English love of field sports.
122
Words and Places
This district comprehends the southern portion of what was known in mediaeval times as Franken, or Franconia, and the northern part of Swabia, or Schwabenland.^ Etymologically and historically, Franconia is the land of the Franks, and Schwabenland is the land of the Suevi, just as England is the land of the Angles. Tacitus locates the Suevi near the Angles; and Ptolemy even speaks of the Suevi as one division of the Angles.^ The ancient charters of this district, extending from the eighth to the twelfth centuries, have been admirably edited, and published by the Government of Wiirtemberg.^ The local names which occur in these charters are, to a surprising extent, identical with those in the Anglo-Saxon charters, published by the English Historical Society.^ Twenty-four very remark- able correspondences are given by Professor Leo,^ and it would be easy largely to increase the list.
But confining ourselves to the names^ which have survived to modern times, I find in the maps of the admirable govern- ment survey of Wiirtemberg no less than 344 patronymics, of which 266, or 80 per cent., occur also in England; ® and the number of identifications might, doubtless, be largely increased by a more careful comparison. The evidence is overwhelming. It proves that the villages of Wiirtemberg and the villages of England were originally settled by men bearing the same family names. One or two instances of these correspondences may here be given, and others will be found in the appendix."^ Thus the ^slingas are mentioned in a Kentish charter,® we have Eslingaforda in the Exon Domesday, and Islington in Norfolk and Middlesex. In Artois we find Islinghem and
It may be curious to note that the battles of Blenheim and Dettingen were fought on the borders of this Saxon district, and that of Agincourt on the borders of the Boulogne colony.
1 On the close connection of the Franks and Suevi, see Zeuss, Die Deutschefiy pp. 328, 338.
2 rQ)v 8e ivros Kai iJ,€<Toyd(jjv idvQv fx^yLorra fi^v eari r6 re tu>v T^iOinfjpotjp tQp 'AyyeiKQp. See Zeuss, Die Deutschen^ p. 153. It is a very significant fact that in mediaeval times the district south of Heidelberg was called the Angla-Degau.
^ Wirtembergisches Urkundenbuch^ herausgegeben von dem Kdniglichen Staatsarchiv in Stuttgart. Edid. Kausler; two vols. 4to, 1849 and 1858. A large number of ancient Swabian names are also to be found in the Codex Laureshamensis y in Diimges, Regesta Badensia, and in Trehere, Origines Palatince. See also Forstemann, Alt-deutsches Namenbuch, vol. ii. passim.
^ Codex Diplomaticus Mvi Saxonici, opera Joh. M. Kemble; five vols. 8vo.
® Anglo-Saxon Names ^ pp. 116-119.
® The proportion is the same as in the Boulogne colony.
’ Appendix B. * Cod. Dipl. No. in.
The Anglo-Saxons 123
Eslinghen; and in Wiirtemberg there are several villages named Esslingen, Eislingen, and Aislingen. Again, the Besin- gas, who are mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon charter, appear at Bessingham in Norfolk, at Bezingham in Artois, and at Bissingen in Wiirtemberg. The Birlingas appear in a Worcestershire charter, we have Birling in Kent, Birlingham in Worcestershire, Barlinghem and Berlinghen in Artois, and Bierlingen in Wiirtem- berg — a place which has been identified with the Birlingen of an ancient charter. So we have Booking in Essex, Bouquing- hem in Artois, and Bochingen in Wiirtemberg.
It will be observed that these Swabian names terminate almost universally in ing-en. The suffix en is usually the sign of the dative plural. Thus Birlingen would mean ‘‘ At the Birlings,’’ that is, ‘‘ at the place where the family of Birl lives.” ^ It should, however, be noted that a name like Birlingen may be a corruption of the Berling/^m, which we find in Artois.^ The hen in this case is, undoubtedly, a corruption of hem, for we find that, close to the coast, the village-names end in hem, a suffix which passes into hen as we approach the Belgian frontier. The hem of Artois is undoubtedly only a phonetic modification of the English ham ; and it is, therefore, a question whether the -ing-en of Wiirtemberg is not the same as the -ing-ham of England, since we can trace it through the intermediate stages of inghen and inghem?
What interpretation shall we put upon these facts? Shall we conclude that the cradle of the Saxon race is to be sought in the Valley of the Neckar, or were Swabia and England both
^ So Badm is a dative plural answering to Thermis or Aquis. Holstein, Swedm, Hessen, and Preuss^n are also dative plurals. Pott, Personen- Namen^ p. 169; Forstemann, Alt-Deutsches Namenbuch, vol. ii. p. 835; Ortsnamen, pp. 194, 195; Grimm, Deut. Gram. vol. ii. p. 349; Meyer, Ortsnamen des Kantons Zurich^ p. 139; Bender, Deutschen Ortsnamen, p. 103; Vilmar, Ortsnamen, pp. 264, 265; and p. 66, supra.
^That the Suevi were associated with the Saxons in the formation of the Flemish settlement is proved by the names of some fifteen villages in Flanders which contain their name, e.g. Suevezele, Sueveghem, etc. Warnkonig, Flandrische Staatsgeschichte, vol. i. p. 91.
® In Switzerland heim often becomes en, e.g. Altheim is now Alten, Dachsheim is now Dachsen, Sickingen was anciently Sickingheim. Pott, Personen-Namen, p. 169; Meyer, Ortsnamen, p. 125. In Hesse we find Sielen, anciently Siliheim, and Heskem, anciently Heistincheim. Vilmar, Ortsnamen, p. 271; Forstemann, Ortsnamen, pp. 98, 231. Some of the names, instead of the suffix ing-en, terminate in ig-heim. This is clearly the Anglo-Saxon ham, a home, while ham, an inclosure, w’ould be repre- sented by en. The distinction which has been lost in England has been preserved in Swabia. Since heim is a long syllable, the penultimate is shortened for phonetic reasons by the omission of a letter, and ingheim becomes igheim, or enheim, as in the cases of Bbnigheim, Besigheim, Bietigheim, Billigheim, and Dackenheim.
Words and Places
124
colonies from a common motherland ? In the case of a fluviatlle migration the descent of the river would be far more easy, and therefore far more probable, than the ascent against a rapid current like that of the Rhine. ^ But this argument is of small force when weighed against the concurrence of ancient tradition, which places the Saxons on the coast of the German Ocean. Ptolemy speaks of the “islands of the Saxons;’’ and the geographer of Ravenna says, “ confinalis Daniae est patria quae nominatur Saxonia.” Orosius speaks of the Saxons, “ gentem Oceani in litoribus et paludibus inviis sitam.”^
These and other early notices render it difficult to avoid the •conclusion that the “ old Saxons ” were seated somewhere between the mouths of the Elbe and of the Rhine, in juxta- position with the Suevi, the Franks, the Lombards, and the Angles. As we have already seen, it was here that, for thirty- two years, they withstood the power of Charlemange, who avenged their obstinate resistance by the massacre of thousands of their warriors in cold blood, and dispersed a third of the nation into distant provinces.^ This extermination of the Saxons on the Weser, coupled with the subsequent influx of a Sclavonic population, as evinced by the local names, may serve to account for the absence of characteristic Saxon names in that region, while the Swabians and Angles of Wiirtemberg may possibly have formed one of the transported colonies of Charlemange; if, indeed, the Swabian colony was not a settlement brought about at the same time and by the same causes that produced the descents upon the English coast.^
^ Along the whole course of the Rhine, from the Neckar to the sea, a distance of more than 250 miles, we find scattered, here and there, isolated names undoubtedly akin to those which we have been considering. There is no cluster of them to be discovered anywhere, nothing but single names, such as Bingen, Wellingen, Rellinghaus, and Eppinghofen, which seem to have been waifs by the roadside, dropped by the passing host of pilgrims.
* On the original seat of the old Saxons see Lappenberg, Anglo-Saxon Kings ^ vol. i. p. 87; Zeuss, Die Deutschen, pp. 380-394. The modern kingdom of Saxony was Sclavonic to a late date, as is shown by the local names. It is out of the question to locate the “ old Saxons ” in this region.
® Eginhard, in his life of Charlemagne, sec. vii., and again in his Annals, A.D. 804, says that Charlemagne transplanted 10,000 men of the Saxons, with their wives and children, into Germany and Gaul. AU these were from the Duchy of Bremen. The names of Sachsenhausen, near Frankfort, and Katzellenbogen in the gorge of the Rhine, may be records of some of these settlements. See p. 117, supra; Pertz, Mon. Ger. vol. ii. p. 447; vol. i. p. 191; Palgrave, English Commonwealth ^ vol. i. p. 40.
* Both Zeuss and Latham think that the Suevi left the shores of the Weser for those of the Danube and the Neckar in the third century. The Saxons moved southwards in the sixth century. See Zeuss, Die Deutschen, p. 316; Turner, Anglo-Saxons^ vol. i. p. 208.
CHAPTER VIII
THE NORTHMEN
Incursions of the Northmen — Norse test-words: “ by,” ” thorpe,” ” toft,” ville,” “ garth,” “ ford,” “ wick ” — Vestiges of the Danes near the Thames — Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, and Lincolnshire — ^The Danelagh — Norwegians in Sutherland, the Orkneys, Shetlands, Hebrides, and Isle of Man — Cumberland and Westmoreland — The Wirall — Colony in Pembrokeshire — Devonshire and the south coast — Northmen in Ireland — Intensity of the Scandinavian element in different parts of England — Northmen in France — Names in Normandy — Norse Names in Spain, Sicily, and the Hellespont — Local vestiges of the Anglo- Norman conquest — Anglo-Norman nobles in Scotland.
For three centuries the Northmen were the terror of Western Europe. They sailed up the Elbe, the Scheldt, the Rhine, the Moselle, and the Neckar.^ They ravaged the valleys of the Somme, the Seine, the Marne, the Yonne, the Loire, and the Garonne. They besieged Paris, Amiens, Orleans, Tours, Troyes, Chalons, Poictiers, Bordeaux, and Toulouse.^ They plundered the coasts of Italy, and encountered the Arabs at Seville and Barcelona.^ Over the entrance to the arsenal at Venice may still be seen one of the sculptured lions which once adorned the Piraeus at Athens. The marble is deeply scored with Norse runes, which, by the aid of photography, have been deciphered by Professor Rafn of Copenhagen, and which prove to be a record of the capture of the Piraeus by Harald Hardrada, the Norwegian king who fell at Stamford Bridge.^ The Northmen established themselves as conquerors or colonists over the half of England, in the isles and western coasts of Scotland, in Green- land, in Iceland, in the Isle of Man, and in the north of France — they founded kingdoms in Naples, Sicily, France, England, and Ireland — while a Norse dynasty ruled Russia for seven hundred years, ^ and for centuries the Varangian guard upheld the totter- ing throne of the Byzantine emperors.
^ Strinnholm, Wikingziige, p. 8i.
Ib. pp. 34, 35, 98, 144; Crichton, Scandinavia^ vol. i. p. 165.
^Gayangos, Moham. Dynasties^ vol. ii. pp. 116, 431, 435; Strinnholm, Wikingzuge, p. 36; Depping, Expeditions, vol. i. pp. no, 134.
*Laing, Heims kringla, vol. hi. pp. 3, 4; Dasent, Burnt Njal, vol. i. p. 10; vol. ii. p. 499; St. John, Four Conquests, vol. ii. p. 248.
® Of the fifty Russian ambassadors to Constantinople in the year 945, as many as forty-seven bear Norse names, such as Rulov (Rolf), Phrelaf (Frideleif), Grim, Karl, Ulf, Asbrand, and Sven. Strinnholm, Wikingzuge, p. 296.
125
Words and Places
1 26
The historic annals of these conquests are scanty and obscure. But the Norse names which are still found scattered over the north-west of Europe supply a means of ascertaining many facts which history has left unrecorded. By the aid of the names on our modem maps we are able to define the precise area which was ravaged by the Scandinavians, and we can, in many instances, detect the nature of the descent, whether for purposes of plunder, trade, or colonisation. Sometimes, indeed, we can even recover the very names of the Viking chiefs and of their followers, and ascertain from whence they sailed, whether from the low-lying coasts of Denmark, or from the rock-bound fjords of Norway.
Before we proceed to attempt the solution of any of these curious problems, it will be necessary to exhibit the tools with which the historical lock is to be picked. We must analyse and classify the characteristic names which the Northmen have left upon the map.
The most valuable and important of these test-words is byr or by. This word originally meant a dwelling, or a single farm, and hence it afterwards came to denote a village.^ In Iceland, at the present day, the ordinary name given to a farmstead is boer^ and in Scotland a cow-stall is still called a byre. We find this word as a suffix in the village-names of Denmark, and of all countries colonised ^ by the Danes. In Normandy we find it in the form hue or boeuf, and in England it is usually contracted into by,^ In the Danish district of England — between Watling Street and the River Tees — the suffix by frequently takes the place of the Anglo-Saxon -ham or -ton. In this region there are numerous names like Grimsby,^ Whitby, Derby,® Rugby,
^ A by-law is the local law enacted by the township. Compare the Burlaw, or Birlaw, of Scotland. Palgrave, English Commonwealth^ vol. i. p. 80. On the suffix by, see Donaldson, English Ethnog. p. 54; Worsaae, Danes and Norwegians, pp. 67, 159; Latham, English Language, vol. i. p. 431; Ansted and Latham, Channel Islands, p. 333; Ferguson, North- men, p. 42.
* Peaks and Passes, second series, vol. i. p. 47.
® It denotes Danish colonisation. In places visited only for purposes of trade or plunder no dwellings would be required.
♦The Devonshire suffix here or bear comes still nearer to the Icelandic form. See p. 141, infra. The Normand boeuf seems to be represented in the English booth, and the Scotch bothie. Le Prevost, Recherches, p. 40; Ferguson, Northmen, p. 46.
* At the port of Elsinore, previous to the recent abolition of the Sound dues, the vessels of Grimsby could claim certain privileges and exemptions conferred by the Danish founder of the town. Palgrave, Eng. Common- wealth, vol. i. p. 50; Normandy and England, vol. hi. p. 349.
* In a few cases we have documentary evidence of a change of name
The Northmen
1 27
Kirby, Netherby, Selby, or Ashby. In Lincolnshire alone there are one hundred names ending in by. To the north of Watling Street there are some six hundred instances of its occurrence — to the south of it, scarcely one. There are scores and scores of names ending in by in Jutland and Sleswic, and not half-a-dozen throughout the whole of Germany.^ The suffix is common both to the Norwegian and Danish districts of England, though it is more frequent in the latter.
Another useful test-word is thorpe, throp, or trop^ which we find in Althorpe, Copmansthorpe, and Wilstrop, near York. It means an aggregation of men or houses — a village. This suffix is very useful in enabling us to discriminate between the settlements of the Danes and those of the Norwegians, being confined almost exclusively to the former. It is very common in Denmark and East Anglia, it is very rare in Norway, it does not occur in Lancashire, only once in Cumberland, and very seldom in Westmoreland.
The word toft, which in Normandy takes the form tot, is also distinctly Danish and East Anglian. It is very scarce in Norway and Westmoreland, and is unknown in Cumberland. It signifies a homestead or inclosure, and, like by and thorpe, it is an indication of permanent colonisation.
Thwaite, on the other hand, is the distinctive Norwegian suffix. The meaning is nearly the same as the Saxon field, a forest clearing. It is very common in Norway, it occurs forty- three times in Cumberland, and not once in Lincolnshire, while thorpe, the chief Danish test-word, which occurs sixty-three times in Lincolnshire, is found only once in Cumberland.
In Normandy the greater proportion of Norse names end in ville, as Tancarville or Haconville. This has always, I believe, been referred to the Romance word villa, but a careful study of the regions in which it occurs has convinced me that it must
consequent upon the Danish conquest. Thus We know that the Norse name of Deoraby or Derby took the place of the former Saxon name of Northweorthig, or Norworth as it would now be written. So the Saxon Streoneshalch became the Norse Whitby.
^ Even these are chiefly found on the Eyder and north of the Elbe — a Danish district.
^ It corresponds to the German dorf, a village, seen in the names Altorf, Dusseldorf, etc. Cf. Arnold, Hist. Rome, vol. i. p. 526. In Westphalia and Munster the form trup or drup is very common, as Holtrup, Aldrup, Sandrup, Bamstrup, Westrup. Massmann, in Dorow’s Denkmdler, vol. i. pp. 187-192. The etymological affinities of thorpe are discussed by Diefenbach, V ergleichendes Worterbuch, vol. ii. p. 698; Leo, A.-S. Names, pp. 43-50; Forstemann, Namenbuch, vol. ii. p. 1391.
Words and Places
1 28
be the Teutonic weiler^ an abode, a single house, which is so common in the Rhinegau and in many parts of Germany.^ Toward the edge of the Norman occupancy it takes the form villiers^ as in the name Hardivilliers. In England it is found in the form well or will, as at Kettlewell, and Brad well.
The Norse garth, an inclosure, which corresponds to the Anglo-Saxon yard, has already been discussed.^
The word heck,^ a brook, is more frequent in the Norwegian than in the Danish region, and this also is the case with the suffixes -haugh, -with, -tarn, and -dale,^ The word force, which is the ordinary name for a waterfall in the lake district, is exclusively Norwegian, and corresponds to the Icelandic and Norwegian f OSS. The word fell is also derived from Norway, where it takes the form fjeld (pronounced fi-ell). It is the usual name for a hill in the north-west of England.®
We now come to the words which do not necessarily imply any permanent colonisation by the Northmen. The suffix ford occurs both in Anglo-Saxon and in Norse names, but with characteristic difference of meaning. In either case ford is a derivative of far an ox far a, to go.® The fords of the Anglo- Saxon husbandmen, which are scattered so abundantly over the south of England, are passages across rivers for men or cattle ;
^ Old High German wilari or wilre. New High German weiler. Forstemann, Alt-deutsches Namenbuch, vol. ii. pp. 1527-1533; Bender, Ortsnamen, p. 131.
^ In Canton Zurich it occurs more than seventy times, as in Breitwil. Meyer, Ortsnamen des Kantons Ziirich^ p. 75.
* This form alone may suffice to show how inadequate the Romance villa is as a source of these names.
^ See p. loi, supra. Micklegarth or “ Greatgarth ” was the Norse name of Constantinople.
® In Mercia we find the form hatch, as in Woodbatch, Comberbatch, and Sandbach.
*The Anglo-Saxon form is dell, as in Arundel. The Norse form dale is seen in Kendal, Annandale, and Lonsdale. The German equivalent is thal. When dal is a prefix it is usually a corruption of the Celtic dol, a field, as in the cases of Dalkeith and Dalrymple.
’ E.g. the waterfall of Skogarfoss in Iceland.
* The Anglo-Saxon field or feld is from the same root as the Norse fell. A fell is a place where the groimd is on the fall; a field or feld is where the trees have been felled. In old writers wood and feld are continually con- trasted. Just like the American term ‘‘ a clearing,” the word field bore witness to the great extent of unfelled timber which still remained. With the progress of cultivation the word has lost its primitive force. The word fold is from the same source. See p. 102, supra ; Trench, Study of Words, p. 200; Sparschuh, Berichtigungen, p. 17.
* A cabman’s or waterman’s fare is the person who goes with him. Fare- well is an imperative — ^journey well. The fare is so called from its characteristic habit of moving across the fields. See Diefenbach, Vergl. Wort. vol. i. pp. 364-366; Sparschuh, Berichtigungen, p. 65.
The Northmen 129
the fords of the Scandinavian sea-rovers are passages for ships ^ up arms of the sea, as in the case of the fjords of Norway and Iceland,^ and the firths of Scotland. These Norse fords are found on the coasts which were frequented for purposes of trade or plunder. We have instances in Wexford, Carlingford, Water- ford, and Strangford in Ireland, in Milford and Haverford in Wales, in Orford and Chillsford in Suffolk, and perhaps in Seaford ^ in Sussex, and Deptford, the deep reach ’’ on the Thames.
Wick is also found in both Anglo-Saxon and Norse names, but here also there is a difference in the application, analogous to that which we have just considered. The primary meaning in either case seems to have been a station.^ With the Anglo- Saxons it was a station or abode on land — hence a house or a village: with the Northmen it was a station for ships ^ — hence a small creek or bay. The sea-rovers derived their name of vik-ingsf or ‘‘ creekers,’’ from the wics or creeks in which they anchored. The inland wicks, therefore, are mostly Saxon, while the Norse wicks fringe our coasts,'^ and usually indicate the stations of pirates, rather than those of colonists. Thus
^ While many of our agricultural terms, as basket, crook, kiln, fleam, barrow, ashlar, gavelock, rasher, and mattock, are of Celtic origin, seafaring words, such as cockswain, boatswain, and skipper, are mostly Norse. Garnett, Essays, p. 31. Cf. Diez, Gram. d. Rom. Spr. vol. i. p. 56.
^ E.g. Faxa Fiord, Hafnafiord, and Hvalfiord in Iceland.
^ Still pronounced Seafoord.
* See Marsh, Lectures on the Origin and Hist, of the English Language, p. 132. The root runs through all the Aryan languages. We have the Sanskrit viga, the Zend vtg, the Greek ol/cos, a house, and the Latin vicus, the Maeso-Gothic veihs, the Polish wies, the Irish fich, the Cymric gwic, all meaning an abode or village. Diefenbach, V ergleichendes Worterbuch, vol. i. p. 138; Pictet, Orig. Indo-Europ. vol. ii. p. 238; Vilmar, Ortsnamen, p. 270; Crichton, Scandinavia, vol. i. p. 37; Sparschuh, Berichtigungen, p. 95; Forstemann, Namenbuch, vol. ii. p. 1509.
® There is, however, an Anglo-Saxon verb wician, to run a ship on shore, to take up a station.
® Afterw^ds the word viking came to be used for any robber. Thus in a Norse Biblical paraphrase Goliath is termed a viking. Dasent, Burnt Njal, vol. ii. p. 353.
’ The whole of the Essex coast is lined with names ending in wick. About thirty of the farmhouses in the salt marshes bear this name. We have the Wick (three times), Eastwick (twice), Westwick (twice). North- wick (twice), as well as Je wick, Ray wick, Frowick, Langwick, and Last- wick. These names may be derived either from the Anglo-Saxon, or from the Norse, wic. More probably, however, they should be referred to an entirely different source, namely the Anglo-Saxon vie, a marsh, a word which is related to the German weich, soft, and the modem English word weak. Diefenbach, V ergleichendes Worterbuch, vol. i. p. 139; Leo, Recti- tudines Sing. Pers. p. 53. The numerous places in South Tyrol called Vigo seem to derive their names from the Latin vicus. Gilbert and Churchill, Dolomite Mountains, p. 74.
130 Words and Places
we have Wick and Sandwich, in Kent; Wyke, near Portland; Berwick, in Sussex and Northumberland; and Wicklow, in Ireland, all of which occur in places where there are no inland names denoting Norse colonisation.
The names of Northwich, Middlewich, Nantwich, Droitwich, Netherwich, Shirleywich, Wickham, and perhaps of Warwick, although inland places, are derived indirectly from the Norse wic, a bay, and not from the Anglo-Saxon wic, a village. All these places are noted for the production of salt, which was formerly obtained by the evaporation of sea-water in shallow wiches or bays, as the word baysalt testifies. Hence a place for making salt came to be called a wych-house, and Nantwich, Droitwich, and other places where rocksalt was found, took their names from the wych-houses built for its preparation.^
Another word which denotes the occasional presence of the sea-rovers is ness or naze, which means a nose, or promontory of land. Thus we have Caithness, Wrabness, Cape Grisnez, near Calais, and the Naze in Norway and in Essex.
We may also detect the visits of the Northmen by the word scar, a face of rock or cliff — from skera, to shear, or cut asunder Instances are to be found in the names of Scarborough, the Skerries, and Skerry vore. A holm means an island, almost always an island in a lake or river. Stockholm stands on such an island. We have also Flatholm in the Severn, and Lingholme on Windermere. An island in the sea is denoted by the suffix oe, a, ay, or ey^ as in the case of the Faroe Islands ; Mageroe, in Norway; Staffa, Iona, and Cumbray, on the western coast of Scotland; and Lambay on the Irish coast.
Furnished with these test-words we may endeavour to trace the various settlements of the Danes and of the Norwegians.
To begin with our own island. As will be seen by a refer- ence to the map, the Danes of Jutland appear to have frequented the south-eastern portion of the island for purposes
^ See Knapp, English Roots and Ramifications ^ p. 18. ''Domesday Book mentions salt works at Wich, Upewic, Helperic, Midelwic, and Norwiche, all in Worcestershire. From the same authority we learn that at Droit- wich certain dues of salt were payable. Ellis, Introduction to Domesday, pp. xl and xli.
^ Cf. the Gaelic and Erse sgeir, a cliff, and the Anglo-Saxon sciran, to divide. Hence the shire, a division of land, the shore which divides land from sea, a skewer, the ploughs/jar^ and the shears, instruments for dividing, and a share, a divided part. To score is to make notches on a stick, and the numeral a score denotes the number of notches such a stick would contain. A scar is the mark where the flesh has been divided. A shard is a bit of broken pottery. Sharp and sharp denote that something has been cut off.
2 The suf&x ey is Anglo-Saxon as well as Norse,
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of trade or plunder rather than of colonisation. This we gather from the fact that the Norse names in this district are found chiefly in the immediate vicinity of the coast, and designate either safe anchorages, or dangerous headlands. We find hardly one solitary instance of the occurrence of the suffixes by^ toft, tiiorpe, or thwaite, which would indicate permanent residence.
London was repeatedly besieged by the Danes. With the hope of capturing the rich and unrifled prize, their fleets lay below the city for many months together.^ Their stations were at Deptford, ‘‘ the deep fiord; ’’ at Greenwich,^ the ‘‘green reach; ’’ and at Woolwich, the “ hill reach,” ^ so called apparently from its being overhung by the conspicuous landmarkof Shooter's Hill. The spits and headlands, which mark the navigation along the Thames and the adjacent coasts, almost all bear characteristic Norse names — such as the Foreness, the White- ness, Shellness, Sheemess, Shoeburyness, Foulness, Wrabness^ Orfordness, and the Naze, near Harwich. On the Essex coast we find Danesey Flats, Langenhoe, and Alresford.'* Dengey Hundred, in the south-east of Essex, is spelt Daneing in a charter of Edward the Confessor.^ Prettlewell and Hawkswell, in the same neighbourhood, may probably contain the suffix -ville, which is so common in Normandy; and Thoby, near Ingate- stone,® Scar House, and Lee Beck, indicate the presence of Danish settlers. In the extreme north-eastern corner of the county we find a little compact Danish colony — ^planted on a spot well guarded by marshes and the sea. Here we discover the Danish names of Harwich, Holmes Island, Kirby, Thorpe-le- Soken, and East Thorpe. At Walton on the Naze there seems to have been a walled inclosure, to defend the intruders from the assaults of their hostile Saxon neighbours. In the south- eastern comer of Suffolk we have another Walton, probably a second fortified outpost of the Danish kingdom.”
^ Saxon Chronicle^ a.d. 1013, 1014, 1016.
* There is a Grenivik ia Iceland, which is mentioned in the Landna- mabokj p. 255.
®This etymology is confirmed by the fact that Woolwich is written Hulviz in Domesday,
* Stansgate Wick, Wigborough, and Battleswick may be either Saxon or Norse. See p. 129, supra.
® Gough’s Camden^ vol. ii. p. 132.
* Not far from hence Cnut gained a great victory over Eadmund Iron- side, which may have led to the settlement of some of the conquerors in the neighbourhood. See Chapter XIII.
’ In England we find some forty places called Walton. With one or two exceptions these occur in the neighbourhood of some isolated Danish or Norwegian colony. There are places bearing the name in the neigh-
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In Suffolk there are a few scattered Danish names, chiefly near the coast — such as Ipswich, Dunwich,^ Walderswick, Orford, Chillesford, Thorpe, Bamby, and Lowestoft.
The name of Norwich is probably Norse. The city is situated on what was formerly an arm of the sea, and it was visited by Danish fleets.^ In the extreme south-eastern comer of Norfolk there is a dense Danish settlement — occupying the Hundreds of East and West Flegg,^ a space some eight miles by seven, well protected on every side by the sea, and the estuaries of the Bure and the Yare. In this small district eleven names out i of twelve are unmistakably Norse, compounded mostly of some | common Danish personal name, and the suffix hy. We find ! the villages of Stokesby, Billockby, Filby, Hemsby, Ormsby, ! Scroteby, Rollesby, Maltby, Herringby, and Clippesby. The | parish of Repps reminds us of the Icelandic districts called | Hreppar,^ and St. Olave’s Bridge preserves the name of the i royal saint of Scandinavia. In the remaining part of Norfolk there are scattered names of a distinctively Danish character, though they by no means preponderate.® Here, however, we are met by an element of uncertainty, since the dialectic peculiar- ities of the Danes from Jutland merge into those of the East Anglians ® who migrated from the contiguous districts of .Hol-
bourhood of Harwich, Ipswich, Fenny Stratford, L^nin, Wisbeach, Liver- pool, and Haverford West, all regions inhabited by an intrusive population, to whom the security afforded by a walled town would be a matter of prime necessity.
1 Beda writes the name Dunmoc. It would seem, therefore, that the last syllable of the modern name is due to Danish influence.
^ Saxon Chronicle^ a.d. 1004; Turner, Anglo-Saxons, vol. ii. p. 317; | Palgave, Normandy and England, vol. iii. p. 398.
® From the Norse word fiegg, or Danish vlak, flat. Compare the names j of Fleckney, in Leicestershire, and Flekkesfjord and Fleckeroe, on the ! Norwegian coast. |
*See p. 150, infra. \
® In the list of Suffolk surnames given in Donaldson’s English Ethno- \ graphy, pp. 62-65, there are several which occur in the Landnamabok of j Iceland. The sons of Njal were Skarphethin, Helgi, and Grimmr; these three names are common in Norfolk in the form Sharpin, Heely, and Gryme. Dasent, Burnt Njal, vol. i. p. 79; Borrow, Wild Wales, vol. i. p. 352, note.
® In the Rev. R. Garnett’s Essay on the Language and Dialects of the British Isles (Essays, pp. 139, 140, 143) an attempt is made to distinguish the Anglian districts by means of the hard forms, Carlton, Fiskerton, Sldpton, Skelbrooke, Skephouse, etc., which take the place of the Charltons or Chorltons, Fishertons, Shelbrookes, and Sheephouses, which are found to the south of the Thames and the west of the Teme. But it may be doubted how far these forms are Anglian and how far Scandi- navian. Mr. R. Garnett’s Anglian districts are : i. East Anglian —
Norfolk and Suffolk. 2. Middle Anglian — Lincoln, Notts, and Derby- shire. 3. North Anglian — West Riding. 4. Northumbrian — Durham,
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Stein and Sleswic; and it is often difficult to discriminate between the names derived from either source.
When, however, we cross the Wash and come to Lincolnshire, we find overwhelming evidence of an almost exclusive Danish occupancy. About one-fourth of the village-names in Lincoln- shire present the characteristic Danish suffix by, while the total number of Danish names in this county amounts to about three hundred — ^more than are found in all the rest of Southumbrian England.
The fens which border the Witham, the Welland, and the Nen effectually guarded the southern frontier of the Danish settlers; and this natural boundary they do not seem to have crossed in any considerable numbers. A line drawn from east to west, about eleven miles to the north of Boston, will mark the southern limit of the purely Danish, as distinguished from the Anglian settlement. North of this line is a district about nine miles by twelve, between Tattershall, New Bolingbroke, Horncastle, and Spilsby, which would appear to have been more exclusively Danish than any other in the kingdom.^ In this small space there are some forty unmistakable Danish village-names; such as Kirby, Moorby, Enderby, Wilksby, Claxby, Miningsby, Hagnaby, Danderby, Scrivelsby, Hareby, Lusby, Revesby, Raithby, Sommersby, Salmonby, Fulletby, Ashby, Asgardby, Hemingby, Toft, and others, all denoting the fixed residence of a Danish population.
From Lincolnshire the Danes spread inland over the contigu- ous counties. The Danelagh, or Danish district, by agreement between Alfred and Guthrum, renewed by Eadmund and Anlaf in 941, was divided from the Saxon kingdom by a line passing along the Thames, the Lea, and the Ouse, and then following the course of Watling Street, the Roman road which runs in a straight line from London to Chester.^ North of this line we find in the local names abundant evidence of Danish occupancy, while to
Northumberland, and the North and East Ridings. All these so-called Anglian districts are also, it will be seen, decisively Scandinavian. In fact, the Saxon peculiarities pass into those of the Anglians, the Anglian into those of the Danes, and these again into those of the Norwegians. The Danish inroads were the continuation, under another name, of the earlier Anglo-Saxon expeditions. See Palgrave, Eng. Comm. vol. i. p. 568.
^ A list of surnames compiled from the parish registers of this district, and compared with the names in the Landnamabok of Iceland, would pro- bably prove of great ethnological interest and value.
* Roger de Hoveden, p. 423; St. John, Four Conquests^ vol. i. p. 354; Robertson, Scotland under her Early Kings ^ vol. ii. p. 273; Turner, Anglo- Saxons ^ vol. i. p. 378; Worsaae, Danes and Norwegians ^ p. 21.
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134
the south of it hardly a single name is to be found denoting any permanent colonisation. The map will show the manner in which the Danish local names radiate from the Wash. In Leicestershire, Rutland, Northamptonshire, and Yorkshire, the Danish names preponderate over those of the Anglo-Saxon type; while Cambridgeshire, Huntingdonshire, Bedfordshire, and the adjacent counties, protected by the fens, present scarcely a single Danish name.^
We have, however, the Danish village-names of Heythrop, and Cockthorpe in Oxfordshire. Dacorum Hundred, in Herts, is called Danais in Domesday: it contains the hamlets of
Elstrop, Aystrope, Causewell, Hamwell, and a place called Danefurlong; and on the borders of the hundred, close to the dividing line of Watling Street, are Kettlewell,^ Chiswill, and Danesend.^ It will be seen also how the Danish names cluster round each of the Danish fortresses of Leicester, Derby, Stamford, Nottingham, Lincoln, and York.^
As we leave Yorkshire and approach Durham and Northumber- land the Norse names rapidly diminish in frequency, and north of the Tweed they almost entirely disappear. The few that we find are usually only stations on the coast, as Alnwick and Berwick. The names of a few bays and headlands ^ prove that the Northmen were familiar with the navigation of the coast, while the absence of any Norse names of villages or farms proves that the soil, for some reason, was left in the undisturbed possession of the Saxons or the Celts. In Fife we find by once or twice, and ihorpe appears once in the form of threap.^ The map proves conclusively that the district between the Tees and the Forth is one of the most purely Saxon portions of the island, thus remarkably corroborating the historical fact that in the eleventh century even the Lothians were reckoned as a part of England."^
But as we approach the north-eastern extremity of Scotland a new phenomenon presents itself. We find a large number of Norse names ; they are, however, no longer Danish as hereto-
^ Toft, in Cambridgeshire, is almost the only instance.
^ An unmistakably Norse name. In the Landnamabok Retell occurs repeatedly as a personal name.
® Gough’s Camden, vol. ii. p. 67.
* On the Danish burghs, see Worsaae, Danes and Nonvegians, p. 31; Kemble, Saxons in England, vol. ii. p. 320.
® E.g. Alnwick, Berwick, the Firths of Forth, Tay, and Moray, Black- ness, Borrowstowness, Fifeness, Buttonness, Burleness.
® See Chalmers, Caledonia, vol. i. p. 487.
’ See Palgrave, Normandy and England, vol. iv. p. 346.
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fore, but exclusively Norwegian. We find, in fact, that the local nomenclature bears decisive witness to the historical fact that, down to a comparatively late period,^ the Shetlands, the Orkneys, the Hebrides, and the Isle of Man, were not depend- encies of the Crown of Scotland, but jarldoms attached to the kingdom of Norway.
It may seem strange to us that the extreme north-western comer of Great Britain should be called Sutherland.^ No inhabitants of Scotland could have bestowed so inappropriate a name. And, accordingly, we find that the Gaelic peasantry call the county Catuibh.^ The name of Sutherland was evidently given by a people living still further to the north. Suther- land, in short, was the mainland to the south of the Orkney jarldom. Here, as well as in Caithness, we find numerous Norwegian names, such as Brora, Thurso, Wick, Skeroar, Loch Skerrow, and Sandwick Bay. The barren uplands were left to the Gael; while in the more fertile straths and glens we find the Norse suffixes -dale, -seter, and -ster. Names like Loch Laxford^ or Strath Helmsdale, in which a Celtic synonym is prefixed to the Norse word, seem to point to the recovery by the Celts of that preponderance of which, for a time, they had been deprived.
In the Shetlands every local name, without exception, is Norwegian. The names of the farms end, as in Norway, in -seter or -ster, and the hills are called -how, -hoy, and -holL The names of the small bays have the Norwegian suffix -voe, as Westvoe, Aithsvoe, Laxvoe, and Hamnavoe.® We find also Burrafiord, Saxaford, Lerwick, and Sandwick. In the whole of the Orkneys there are only two, or perhaps three, Celtic names.® The names of the islands of which the group is composed present the Norwegian suffix a, island. We have Sanda (sand island), Stronsa (stream island), and Westra (west island); and often,
^ A.D. 1266. ® See p. 70, supra.
® This word, and the first syllable of Caithness, are probably vestiges of an Ugrian occupation, which preceded the arrival of the Celts. In the Lapp language ketje means an end or extremity. See Robertson, Early Kings, vol. i. p. 33; Worsaae, Danes, p. 253.
* i.e. Salmon fjord.
* Worsaae, Danes, p. 230.
« One of these is the name of the group. In the word Orkney the terminal syllable ey is the Norse for island. The n which precedes is, I imagine, a vestige of the Gaelic innis or inch, an island. Ore is probably from the Gaelic ore, a whale. Diefenbach, Celtica, vol. 1. p. 41. Milton speaks of “ the haunt of seals and ores.” Dr. Guest and Chalmers think that the root is the Cymric word orch, which means a border or limit. Guest, On Gentile Names, in Phil, Proc. vol. i. p. 9.
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as in the case of Ronaldsa and Egilsa^ we find the name of the first Norwegian chief who found here a safe island home.^
It was the practice of the Vikings to retire during the winter months to one of the small islands off the coast, and to issue forth again on the return of summer to recommence their piracies. 2 The names of the innumerable islets of the Hebrides bear curious testimony to the prevalence of this practice. The small islands, with few exceptions, bear Norse appellations, while the local names on the mainland are almost wholly Celtic.^
The name of Lewis is the Norwegian Ijod-husf^ the wharf or landing-place; and in this island we find bays called Sandwich and Norwich. Uig was anciently Wig,^ and Harris is a corrup- tion of Harige.® Broadford Bay, in Skye, is a name identical with Breida Fiord in Iceland, and there are also the capes of Trottemish and Vattemish (water-ness). The first portion of this name contains the characteristic Norse word vatn, which appears in the names of no less than ten of the Hebrideam lakes — as, for example, in those of Lochs Langavat and Steepavat."^
The Norsemen called the Hebrides the Sudreyjar, or Southern Islands. The two sees of the Sudreyjar and of the Isle of Man were united in the eleventh century, and. made dependent on the Archbishop of Trondhjem, in Norway, by whom, till the year 1334, the Episcopi Sudorenses were always consecrated. The Anglican Bishop of Sodor and Man still retains his titular supremacy over those ‘‘ southern isles ’’ which have so long been under the pastoral care of a presbyterian Church.
In the south of Scotland the only Scandinavian settlement on the mainland was in Dumfriesshire. Here we find more than a dozen names with the suffix by, and others ending in garth,
^ The Faroe Islands are wholly Norwegian. We have the islands of Sandoe, Megganaes, Hestoe, Vaagoe, Naalsoe, and the chief town is Thorshavn.
^ Skene, History of the Highlanders ^ vol. i. p. 91.
® There are three islands called Bernera, two called Scalpa, two called Pabbay. We have also the islands of Skarpa, Tarransay, Gillisay, Barra, Sundera, Watersay, Mingalay, Sanderay, Plottay, Uidhay, Eriskay, Fiaray, Wiay, Grimsay, Rona, Calvay, Lingay, and Hellesay. Nearer to the coast we find Rona, Fradda, Raasay, Soa (twice), Longa, Sanday, Canna, Ulva, Gommeray, Staffa (cf. Stafafell, in Iceland), Iona, Colonsay, Oronsay, Kerrera, Skarba, Jura, Islay, Gigha, Cara, Cumbray, Ailsa, and many others.
^Ansted and Latham, Channel Islands^ p. 333; Innes, Orig. Par, Possibly, however, the root is lod, a bimdle of fishing lines.
® Innes, Orig. Par. vol. ii. p. 385.
* Ih. p. 376.
7 In Iceland there are lakes called Langer-vatn, Apa-vatn, Groena-vatn, Fiski-vatn, Torfa-vatn, Sand-vatn, etc. On Norse names in the Scottish Isles, see Worsaae, Danes, pp, 218-276; Barry, Hist, of Orkneys, p. 232.
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beck, and thwaite. In the neighbouring counties of Kirkcud- bright and Wigton there are also a few outlying names of the same class.
The Isle of Man^ which at one time formed a portion of the kingdom of Norway, must have contained a considerable Nor- wegian population, as appears from the Norse names of the villages, such as Colby, Greenaby, Dalby, Baleby, Kirby, Sulby, and Jurby. On the coast we find the bays of Perwick, Fleswick, Greenwick, Sandwick, Aldrich, Soderick, Garwick, and Dres- wick, the capes of Langness and Littleness, and the islands of Eye, Holm, the Calf, and Ronaldsay; while Sneefell (snow hill), the highest mountain in the island, bears a pure Norwegian name.^ The distribution of these Norse names is very note- worthy. It will be seen by a reference to the map that they are confined mainly to the south of the island, a circum- stance for which I was at a loss to account, till I discovered the historical fact that when Goddard of Iceland conquered Man he divided the fertile southern portion among his followers, while he left the natives in possession of the northern and more mountainous region, where, consequently, Celtic names still prevail.^
In the same way that the Danish names in England are seen to radiate from the Wash, so the Norwegian immigration seems to have proceeded from Morcambe Bay and that part of the coast which lies opposite to the Isle of Man. Cumberland, Westmoreland, Lancashire, and Dumfriesshire contain a very considerable number of Scandinavian names, but comparatively few of a distinctively Danish cast. The Lake District seems to have been almost exclusively peopled by Celts and Norwegians. The Norwegian suffixes, -gill, -garth, -haugh, -thwaite, -force, and -fell, are abundant; while the Danish forms, -thorpe and -toft, are almost unknown; and the Anglo-Saxon test-words, -ham, -ford, -worth, and -ton, are comparatively rare.®
Of the other test-words we find ey in Walney and Foulney,^ and holm in Lingholm and Silverholm on Windermere, and in Rampsholme on Ulleswater. Ness occurs in the names of Bowness, Shinbumess, Scarness, and Furness : — wick in Keswick on Derwentwater, and in Bio wick on Ulleswater. The Nor-
^ See p. 22, supra ; and Worsaae, Danes ^ p. 279.
^ Train, Isle of Man, vol. i. p. 78.
® See pp. 126, 127, supra.
* The suffix a, which denotes a river as well as an island, appears in the river-names of the Greta, Liza, Wiza, Rotha, Bretha, Rathay, Calda, as well as in the Ea, and the Eamont. See Ferguson, Northmen, p. 113.
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wegian word stackr, a columnar rock^ was appropriately applied to the mountains which bear the names of Stake, the Sticks, Pike O’ Stickle, and the Hay Stacks (the high rocks).
More than 150 different personal names of the Icelandic type are preserved in the local topography of the Lake District. According to the last census ^ there are now only sixty-three surnames in Iceland, of which the commonest are Kettle, Halle, Ormur, and Gils. In Cumberland and Westmoreland these are preserved in the local names, Kettlewell, Hallthwaite, Orma- thwaite, and Gellstone. By far the most common Christian names in Iceland are Olafur (borne by 992 persons), Einer (by 878), and Bjarni (by 869). These are found in Ulverston, Ennerdale, and Bameyhouse. We find the name of Hrani (now Rennie) in Ransdale, Rainsbarrow, and Wrenside; Loki in Lockthwaite, Lockholm, Locke rby, and Lockerbarrow ; Buthar in Buttermere, Butterhill, and Buttergill; Geit ^ in Gateswater, Gatesgarth, and Gatesgill; and Skogul in Skeggles Water. ^
The Norse haugr, a sepulchral mound, is often found in the names of mountains crowned by conspicuous tumuli. The name of the old Viking who lies buried here is often preserved in the first portion of such local names. Thus, Silver How, Bull How, Scale How, and Butterlip How, are, probably, the burial-places of the forgotten heroes, Solvar, Boll, Skall, and Buthar Lipr.^
In Cheshire, with one remarkable local exception, we find no vestiges of Norse colonists. But the spit of land called the Wirral, between the Dee and the Mersey, seems to have allured them by its excellent harbours, and the protection afforded by its almost insular character.® Here, in fact, we find geo- graphical conditions similar to those which gave rise to the two isolated Norse colonies at the mouths of the Stour and the Yare,® and the result is no less remarkable. In this space of about twelve miles by six there is scarcely a single Anglo- Saxon name, while we find the Norse villages of Raby, Pensby,, Irby, Frankby,, Kirby, Whitby, and Greasby. We find also the Norse names of Shotwick, Holme, Dalpool, Howside, Barnston,
^ Symington, Iceland, p. 183.
2 Ferguson, Northmen in Cumberland, pp. 105, 130.
® Ferguson, Northmen, pp. 128-135. See the Landnamabok, passim.
* Ferguson, Northmen in Cumberland, p. 55.
® We read of a large body of Scandinavian invaders who took refuge here. Turner, Anglo-Saxons, vol. i. p. 397.
® See p. 132, supra.
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Thornton, Thurstanston, Birkenhead, and the Back Brook; and in the centre of the district is the village of Thingwall, a name which indicates the position of the meeting-place of the Thing, the assembly in which the little colony of Northmen exercised their accustomed privileges of local self-government.^
The Vikings cruised around the coasts of North Wales, but we find no trace of settlements. The names of the Orme’s ^ Head, the North Stack, the South Stack, Fenwick Rock, the Skerries, and Priestholme, show their familiar acquaintance with the dangerous points on this rock bound coast; while Port Dyn Norwig, the “ Port of the Norway Man,’' near Bangor, may probably indicate a haven which they frequented.
There is a curious exception to the broad assertion that has been made ^ as to the non-existence of Norse names to the south of Watling Street. The sea-rovers, with infallible instinct, seem to have detected the best harbour in the kingdom, and to have found shelter for their vessels in the fjords of the Pembroke- shire coast — the deep land-bound channels of Milford, Haver- ford,^ Whiteford,® and Skerryford, and the neighbouring creeks of Wathwick, Little Wick, Oxwich, Helwick, Gellyswick, MousseL wick, Wick Haven, and Muggleswick Bay. The dangerous rocks and islands which fringe this coast likewise bear Norwegian names; such are the Stack Rocks, Stackpole Head, the Stack, Penyholt Stack, St. Bride’s Stack, Stack Island, Skokholm Island, Skerry back, Skerpoint, the Naze, Strumble Head, the Worm’s Head, Nash (Naze) Point, and Dungeness (Dangemess). Most of the names on the mainland are Celtic, but the neighbour- ing islands bear the Norse names of Caldy (Cold Island), Barry (Bare Island), Sully (Ploughed Island), Lundy (Grove Island), Skokholm (Wooded Island), Denney (Danes’ Island), Ramsey, Skomer, Burry Holmes, Gateholm, Grassholm, Flatholm,® and Steepholm.
No less than twenty-four of the headlands on the Pembroke- shire coast are occupied by camps, which we may regard as the
1 See Chapter XIII.
2 From the Norse ormr, a serpent. The Wurmshead in South Wales presents the Saxonised form of the same word. In Stanfield’s admirable picture of this rock we seem to see the sea serpent raising its head and the half of its huge length above the waves.
* See pp. 133, 134, supra.
* Havenfjord. So there is a Hafnafjord in Iceland.
® Whiteford Sands show that the estuary of the Burry must have received from the Norsemen the appropriate name of Hvit-fjora.
® A large body of Danes took refuge in Flatholm in the year 918. St. John, Four Conquests , vol. i. p. 322.
F 517
Words and Places
140
first beginning of a Scandinavian occupation of the soil. Round the shores of Milford Haven a little colony of permanent settlers was established in the villages of Freys trop (Freysthorpe), Studda, Vogar, Angle, Tenby (Daneby), Derby, Hasguard, Fishguard, Dale, Lambeth, and Whitsand. Of the Vikings who founded this Welsh colony, Harold, Bakki, Hamill, Grim, Hiam, Lambi, Thomi, Thor, Gorm, Brodor, S5lvar, Hogni, and Buthar have left us their names at Haroldston, Buckston, Amble- ston, Creamston, Hearston, Lambston, Thomston, Thurstan, Gomfreston,^ Brother Hill, Silver Hill, Honey Hill, and Butter Hill, several of which may be the burial-places of those whose names they bear.^
There is, occasionally, in Pembrokeshire, a difficulty in dis- tinguishing between the Norse names and those which are due to the colony of Flemings which was established in this district during the reign of Henry I. ‘‘ Flandrenses, tempore Regis Henrici primi ... ad occidentalem Walliae partem, apud Haverford, sunt translati.’’ ^ These colonists came from a portion of Flanders which was submerged by an irruption of the sea in the year 1 1 10. Leweston, Rickeston, Robeston, Rogeston, Johnston, Walterston, Herbrandston, Thomaston, Williams- ton, Jameston, and Jeffreyston belong to a class of names which we find nowhere else in the kingdom — ^names given, not by Saxon or Danish pagans, but by Christianised settlers, men bearing the names, not of Thurstan, Gorm, or Grim, but of Lewes, Richard, Robert, Walter, and others common in the twelfth century.^ The names of the village of Flemingston, and of the Via Flandrica, which runs along the crest of the Precelly mountains, afford ethnological evidence still more conclusive, and Tucking Mill (Clothmaking Mill) shows the nature of the industry which was imported.
This Pembrokeshire settlement was, probably, at first, little more than a nest of pirates, who sallied forth to plunder the opposite coast of the Channel, and to prey upon any passing merchant craft. That the Somersetshire coast was not unknown to them we see from the Norse names of Wick Rock at one entrance of Bridgewater Bay, and How Rock at the other.
The last syllable in these names would seem not to be the Anglo-Saxon ton, but was probably derived from the memorial stoi^e erected over the ^ave of some departed hero.
2 See Ferguson, Northmen, pp. 10, 66, 68.
3 Higden’s Chronicle, apud Gale, Scriptores, vol. iii. p. 210.
^See Cliffe, South Wales, p. 257; Lappenberg, Anglo-Norman Kings, p. 345; Giraldus Cambrensis, Itin. lib. i. cap. ii; and the notes of H. Lluyd, Camden, and Sir R. C. Hoare upon the passage.
The Northmen
141
The sands which lie in the estuary of the Yeo are called Langford grounds — an indication that this “ long fiord ’’ was known to the Northmen by the appropriate name of Langford.
The chief port of Scilly bears the name of Grimsby, and St. Agnes, the name of the most southern island, is a corruption of the old Norse name Hagenes. On the mainland of Cornwall only one station of the Northmen can be discovered, but the position is admirably adapted for refitting ships, and obtaining necessary supplies. Near the Lizard Point a deep inlet bears the name of Helford, and the village at its head is called Gweek, evidently a corruption of Wick.^
In Devonshire there are two or three clusters of Norse names. These present the characteristic suffix in a form nearly approaching to the old Norse form hyr, which is preserved in the boer of the Icelandic farms In North Devon we find Rockbeer and Bear, both in the neighbourhood of the fjord of Bideford. On the left bank of the estuary of the Exe,^ in South Devon, we have another cluster of such names, comprising the villages of Aylesbere, Rockbere, Larkbeer, and Houndbere. We find also Byestock and Thorp, Exwick and Co wick, the Ness at Teignmouth, the Skerries close by, and a place called Normans {ix, Northman’s) Cross. Here a portion of the Roman road to Exeter takes the Danish name Straightgate. The Northmen penetrated up the estuary of the Tamar as well as up that of the Exe. In the Saxon Chronicle (a.d. 997) we read of a descent of the Danes at Lidford; and in this neighbourhood we find Langabeer, Beardon, Beer Alston, Bearon, Beer Ferrers, Ding- well, and Thurshelton, as well as Bum and Beara (byr water), both on the banks of brooks. At the mouth of the Otter, again we find the villages of Beer, Berewood, and Bovy ^ in Beer. Near Poole Harbour ® we have East Holme, Bere Regis, and Swanwick. There was another Swanwick on Southampton Water, which has been corrupted to Swanage. In the Saxon
^ See the review of the ist edition of Words and Places in the Times of March 26, 1864.
® E.g. Ossaboer, in Iceland. In Essex and Suffolk we find Buers and Bures. See p. 126, supra.
3 On the numerous Danish incursions into Devonshire see Strinnholm, Wikingzuge, p. 57; Turner, Anglo-Saxons, vol. i. pp. 542, 591, 601; vol. ii. pp. 306, 312, 317. In 877 the Danes were in possession of Exeter. St. John, Four Conquests, vol. i. p. 266.
* The Danes landed at Seaton in 937. See Saxon Chronicle.
^ This approximates to the Norman form boeuf. See pp. 126, 146.
® We frequently read of Danish descents in Dorset. See Turner, Anglo^ Saxons, vol. ii. pp. 306, 312; Strinnholm, Wikingziige, p. 55; St. John, Four Conquests, vol. i. p. 443.
142 Words and Places
Chronicle (a.d. 877) we read of the defeat of a Danish fleet at Swanawic on the south coast; and it has been conjectured, with some probability, that a chief bearing the common Danish name of Sweyn may have been in command, from whom we derive the name of “ Sweyn's Bay/’ ^ Swanthorpe, Ibthrop, and Edmundsthrop, all in Hampshire, exhibit the suffix which is so characteristic of Danish settlements. At Holmsdale, in Surrey, we find an isolated Danish name. At this spot the crews of 350 ships, who had marched inland, were cut off by Ethelwulf, in the year 852,^ and it is probable that the survivors may have settled in the neighbourhood. Further to the north we find Thorpe, near Chertsey. There seem to be traces of the Danes at Berwick and Seaford near Beachy Head, and at Holmstone ^ and Wick in Romney Marsh, as well as at the point of Dungeness, or ‘‘ Danger Cape.” Finally, we find them on the Kentish coast at Sandwich, the sandy bay — a name which occurs also in Iceland, in Norway, in the Orlmeys, in the Hebrides, and in the Shetlands. Sandwich in Kent was one of the favourite stations for the Danish fleets; they were there in the years 851 and 1014, as we learn from the Saxon Chronicle.
The Northmen would appear to have established themselves in Ireland rather for purposes of trade than of colonisation. Their ships sailed up the great fjords of Waterford, Wexford,^ Strangford, and Carlingford, and anchored in the bays of Limerick and Wicklow. In Kerry we find the name of Smer- wick, or butter bay,” then apparently, as now, a trading station for the produce of the surrounding district. The name of Copland Island, near Belfast, shows that here was a trading station of the Norse merchants, who trafficked in English slaves ^ and other merchandise. As we approach Dublin the numerous Norse names along the coast — Lambay Island, Dalkey Island, Ireland’s Eye, the Skerries, the Hill of Howth, and Leixlip, the “ salmon leap,” on the Liffey — ^prepare us to learn that the Scandinavians in Dublin were governed by their oWn laws till the thirteenth century, and that, as in London, they had their
^ See Gough’s Camden, vol. i. p. 329. Sweyn was a common Danish name. There are three Swantons in Norfolk. At Swanescomb, near Greenhithe, there are several barrows; and here, it has been thought, Sweyn, King of Denmark, landed.
* St. John, Four Conquests, vol. i. p. 227. Cf. Turner, Anglo-Saxons, vol. i. p. 590.
® Here a battle was fought between Danes and Saxons. The Danes had a fortress in Romney Marsh. Turner, Anglo-Saxons, vol. i. p. 387.
* To the south of Wexford is the Barony of Forth (fjord).
® See Goldwin Smith, Irish History and Irish Character, p. 48.
The Northmen 143
own separate quarter of the city, guarded by walls and gates — Oxmantown, that is, Ostmantown, the town of the men from the East.^
The general geographical acquaintance which the Northmen had with the whole of Ireland is shown by the fact that three out of the four Irish provinces, namely, Leinster, Munster, and Ulster, present the Norse suffix ster, a place, which is so common in local names in the Shetlands and in Norway
In order to estimate with some exactitude the proportionate amount of the Scandinavian element in the different parts of England, the following table has been carefully compiled. It gives the proportion of Norse names to the acreage of the several counties — the proportion in Kent being taken as the unit of computation. The names in those counties which are printed in italics exhibit a Norwegian rather than a Danish character.
Intensity of the Scandinavian element of population, as indicated by village names : —
|
Kent . |
I |
Lancashire • |
. 28 |
||||||
|
Glamorgan |
I |
Durham |
30 |
||||||
|
Hants . |
4 |
West Riding |
60 |
||||||
|
Essex . |
5 |
Nottingham . |
62 |
||||||
|
Warwick . |
5 |
Norfolk . |
. 76 |
||||||
|
Bucks . |
6 |
Northampton |
. 83 |
||||||
|
Cheshire |
8 |
Rutland . |
. 83 |
||||||
|
Devon . |
9 |
North Riding |
III |
||||||
|
Suffolk |
10 |
Cumberland . |
. 124 |
||||||
|
Bedford |
13 |
Westmoreland |
. 125 |
||||||
|
Pembroke . |
15 |
East Riding . |
126 |
||||||
|
Northumberland |
15 |
Lincolnshire . |
. 165 |
||||||
|
Derbyshire |
. |
16 1 |
Leicestershire |
169 |
^ Worsaae, Danes and Norwegians^ pp. 323, 349. The Ostmen possessed the four cities of Dublin, Waterford, Limerick, and Cork. There were Ostman kings of Limerick, Dublin, and Waterford. Lappenberg, Anglo- Norman Kings j p. 64; Strinnholm, WikingzUge^ p. 57.
^ See p. 135, supra.
® In several particulars this table will be found to differ from that given by Mr. Worsaae, Danes and Norwegians, p. 71.
1. I have excluded suffixes common to the Anglo-Saxon and the Norse languages.
2. I have excluded names on the coast not denoting colonisation.
3. I have calculated the proportion of names to the acreage of each county, instead of giving the absolute number of names.
The latter mode of computation is deceptive. An example will make this plain. From Mr. Worsaae’s table it appears that the Scandinavian names in Lincolnshire, a very large county, are three times as numerous as those in Leicestershire, a much smaller one, whereas, in reality, the Norse element is actually less intense in Lincolnshire than it is in Leicestershire. In fact, portions of Lincolnshire are almost destitute of Norse names: for
Words and Places
144
The actual number of names is — in Lincolnshire, about 300; in Leicestershire, Westmoreland, Cumberland, and each of the Ridings, about 100; in Norfolk, Northampton, Notts, and Lancashire, about 50; in Durham and Northumberland, about 20; in Suffolk, Derby, Cheshire, Rutland, and Pembroke, about a dozen ; in Bucks, Bedford, and Warwick, not more than half that number.
From the character of the Norse names upon the map of the British Isles, we may class the districts affected by Scandinavian influence under three general divisions : —
I. Places visited only for trade or booty. These fringe the coast, and are the names of bays, capes, or islands. The sur- rounding villages have Saxon or Celtic names. To this class belong, mostly, the names along the estuaries of the Thames and Severn, and along the coasts of Kent, Sussex, Essex, North Wales, Ireland, and Eastern Scotland.
II. Isolated settlements amid a hostile population. These are found in places which are nearly surrounded by water, and which are furnished with good harbours. In this class we must include the settlements near Harwich, Yarmouth, Birkenhead, and Milford.
III. The Danelagh or Danish kingdom, where the Norse element of the population was predominant. Yet even here the names are clustered, rather than uniformly distributed. Such clusters of names are to be found near Stamford, Slea- ford, Homcastle, Market Rasen, Melton Mowbray, Leicester, Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Newark, Lincoln, Grimsby, York, and Bridlington.
The Scandinavians who settled in France have left few memo- rials of their speech in our French dictionaries — ^few permanent conquests have had so slight an influence on the language of the conquered nation. The conquerors married native women, and their sons seem only to have learned the language spoken by their mothers; so that, except in the neighbourhood of Bayeux, where the Norman speech was grafted on the nearly- related and firmly-established language of the Saxon shore, the sons of the soil at no time spoke a Scandinavian dialect. But the map of Normandy supplies abundant traces of the Scandi-
example, the Fens, which in their nomenclature are neither Saxon nor Danish, but English, having been reclaimed at a period when the distinction between Dane and Saxon had died away.
The Northmen 145
navian conquest.^ The accompanying sketch-map shows the distribution of these names, and, as has been already observed, it proves how carefully the Scandinavians avoided aU encroach- ment on the district already occupied by Saxon colonists.
We find the names of the original Scandinavian settlers are thickly scattered over the land. We have seen that in England the former abodes of the Northmen — Grim, Biom, Harold, Thor, Guddar, and Haco ^ — go by the names of Grimsby, Bum- thwaite, Harroby, Thoresby, Guttersby, and Hacconby: so in
OkK..N.m«. 4^
Normandy these same personal appellations occur in the village- names, and we find Grimonville, Bomeville, Heron ville,Tourville, Godarville, Haconville, and Hacqueville.®
^ A few Norse words still survive in the dialect of Normandy. Thus we have —
In Normandy, In Iceland.
davre dagyerdr breakfast
fikke ficiu pocket
grande granni neighbour
gild gildr clever
feig feigr dying
kaud kot cottage
These are not the terms used either in French or Danish. The French expressions would be dejehner, poche, voisin, habile, moribond, and cabane; and the modem Danish would be frokost, lomme, nabo, flink, dodsens, and hytte. See Etienne Borring, Sur la Limite Meridionale de la Monarchie Danoise, p. 4. In modern French there are a few nautical terms of Danish origin. See Diez, Rom. Gram. vol. i. p. 51. Cf. Max Muller, Lectures, 2nd series, p. 264.
* AU these names are found in the Landnamdbok of Iceland.
* See Depping, vol. ii. p. 339; Palgrave, vol. i. p. 702; Ferguson,
146 Words and Places
The Norse gardfy an inclosure, or yard, occurs in Normandy at Fisigard, Auppegard, and Epegard — ^names which we may compare with Fishguard in Pembrokeshire, Applegarth in York- shire, and ^blegaard in Denmark. Toft, which also means an inclosure, takes the form tot in Normandy, as in Yvetot, Ivo’s toft; Plumetot, flower toft; Lilletot, little toft ; Routot, Rodtot, or red toft; Criquetot, crooked toft; Berquetot, birch toft; Hautot, high toft; Langetot, long toft. We have also Pretot, Toumetot, Bouquetot, Grastot, Appetot, Gametot, Ansetot, Turretot, Hebertot, Cristot, Brestot, Franquetot, Raff e tot, Houdetot, and others, about one hundred in all. Toft being a Danish ^ rather than a Norwegian suffix, would incline us to suppose, from its frequent occurrence, that the conquerors of Normandy were Danes rather than Norwegians; and the total absence of thwaite, the Norwegian test-word, tends to strengthen this supposition.
The suffix by, so common in Danish England, generally takes, in Normandy, the form bceuf, buf, or bue, as in the cases of Criquebuf (Crogby, or crooked-by), Marboeuf (Markby), Quitte- beuf (Whitby, or Whiteby), Daubeuf (Dale-by), Carquebuf (Kirkby), Quillebeuf (Kil-by ^), Elboeuf, Painbeuf, and Linde- beuf. The form buf, or bcBuf, seems very remote from the old Norse boer ; but a few names ending in bue, such as Longbue and Tournebue,^ and still more the village of Bures, exhibit the transitional forms through which the names in buf may probably have passed. Hamby e and Colomby are the only instances of the English form which I can find.
The village of Le Torp gives us the word thorpe, which, how- ever, more usually appears in the corrupted form of torbe, tourp, or tourbe, as in the case of Clitourps.^
The name of the castle-crowned rock of Falaise reminds us of the fells of Cumberland.^
The name of the River Dieppe, which was afterwards ® given to the town which was built beside it, is identical with that of
p. 128; Worsaae, p. 69; Gerville; Petersen. This suffix ville has been usually supposed to be the Romance word villa. It is far more probable, however, that it is the Teutonic weiler, a single house. See p. 128, supra.
^ Moreover, in Denmark we often find combinations identical with some of those just enumerated. Such are Blumtofte, Rodtofte, Langetofte, and Grastofte. See Le Prevost, Recherches, pp. 41, 64.
* Norse kellda, German quelle^ a well or river-source. La Roquette, Recherches, p. 46; Ferguson, Northmen, p. 119.
® Cf Taarnby, in Denmark.
* See Leo, Anglo-Saxon Names, pp. 43-50. Cf. the German felsen.
® Petersen, p, 49. * In the tenth century.
The Northmen
H7
the Diupa, or deep water/’ in Iceland ; and it may be compared with ‘‘ The Deeps ” near Boston.^
From the Norse beckr (Danish bosc), a brook, we have Caude- bec, the ‘‘ cold brook/’ the same name as that of the Cawdbeck in the Lake District, and the Kaldbakr in Iceland. The name of the Briquebec, the “ birch-fringed brook,” is the same as that of the Birkbeck in Westmoreland. The Houlbec, the “ brook in the hollow,” corresponds to the Holbeck in Lincolnshire, and the Holbek in Denmark. The name of Bolbec we may compare with Bolbek in Denmark; and the name of Foulbec, or ‘‘ muddy brook,” is identical with that of the Fulbeck in Lincolnshire.
The Danish d, an island, is seen in Eu, Cantaleu, Jersey, Guern- sey, and Alderney.
The suffix -fleur, which we find in Honfleur and other names, is derived from the Norse fliot^ a small river or channel, which we have in Purfleet, Northfieet, and many other English names. The phonetic resemblance between fleur and fleet may seem slight, but the identification is placed beyond a doubt by the fact that Harfleur was anciently written Herosfluet; while Roger de Hoveden calls Barfleur by the name of Barbeflet, and Odericus Vitalis calls it Barbeflot. Vittefleur is the white river,” and Fiquefleur seems to be a corruption of Wickfleet, ‘‘ the river in the bay.” ^
Holme, a river island, appears in the names of Turhulme, Nihou,^ and Le Houlme, near Rouen. Cape de la Hogue, Cape Hoc, and Cape le Hode, may be compared with the cape near Dublin, called the Hill of Howth. This is the old Norse haugr, a sepulchral mound, the same word which appears in the haughs of Northumberland. Les Dalles, Oudales, Crodale, Croixdal, Danestal, Depedal, Dieppedal, Dametal, and Bruquedalle, remind us of the dales of Westmoreland and the North Riding.
Escoves ^ seems to be the Icelandic skogr, and corresponds to the English shaw, a wood, or shady place. Bose, a wood, or bushy place, is a very common suffix in Normandy, as in the names Verbose, Bricquebosq, and Bandribosc. Holt, a wood,
^ Palgrave, Normandy and England, vol. ii. p. iii; La Roquette,
P- 55.
2 Danish fiod, English flood. See Petersen, Recherches, p. 38 ; Depping, Expeditions, vol. ii. p. 341.
® Havre may be either from the Norse hofn, a haven, or from the Celtic aber, a river’s mouth. See Adelung, Mithridates, vol. ii. p. 41; Diefen- bach, Celtica, i. p. 23.
* Granted to one Niel, or Njal, a.d. 920. Ger\dlle, Noms, p. 229; La Roquette, p. 4S,
® Petersen, p. 50.
Words and Places
148
occurs in the name Terhoulde, or Theroude.^ The Calf of Man is repeated in Le Cauf.^
Beyond the district of Norse colonisation we have a few scattered names of bays and capes^ indicating occasional visits of the Vikings. Such are Cape Grisnez^ or Greyness, near Calais ; Wyk in Belgium; Quantovic; Vigo Bay in the north of Spain and possibly Vico in the Bay of Naples. The Berlingas, a group of rocky islets forty miles north-west of Lisbon, would appear, from the name, to have been a station of the Northmen.^ Hastin- gues, a river-island near Bayonne, probably takes its name from the renowned Viking Hasting, who was long the terror of France, Spain, and Italy and the lie de Biere in the Loire was no doubt so called from the huts which the Danes erected upon it for the accommodation of their prisoners.®
Scaranos, on the southern coast of Sicily,"^ is an almost solitary memorial of the visits of the Vikings to the Mediterranean.® With this name we may compare those of Scamose on the coast of Banff, Scamess in Cumberland, and Sheemess on the Thames. The Skerki rocks, also on the Sicilian coast, may not improbably have received from the Northmen the name of the Skerries, or Scar Isles, which was so frequently given to similar dangerous needles of sea-washed rock.
The most easterly Norse name is Kibotus (Chevetot), near Helenopolis, on the Hellespont. Here was the station of the Vseringer, or Varangian guard of the Byzantine emperors, who were afterwards reinforced by the Ingloi, or Saxon refugees, who fled from the Norman conquerors.®
^ Petersen, p. 50; Depping, vol. ii. p. 344.
* On the Norse names in Normandy, see Depping, Expeditions Maritimes des Normands^ vol. ii. pp. 339-342; Lappenberg, England under the Anglo-Norman Kings ^ pp. 97-100; Borring, Sur la Limite Meridionale de la Monarchie Danoise : and the essays of Palgrave; Petersen; La Roquette; Le Prevost; Gerville; and Latham.
® A Danish fleet was destroyed at Compostella. Strinnholm, Wiking- zilge, vol. i. pp. 144, 145; Depping, vol. i. p. no.
^This patronymic is found on the Baltic coast, in Friesland, and in England, see p. 123, supra.
® Crichton, Scandinavia^ vol. i. p. 166; Strinnholm, Wikingzuge^ vol. i. p. 26; Depping, Expeditions des Normands, vol. i. pp. 122, 132.
® See Strinnholm, Wikingziige, vol. i. p. 34.
7 On the exploits of the Northmen in Sicily, see the Saga of Harald Hardrada, in Laing’s Heimskringla^ vol. iii. p. 7.
® Talbot, English Etymologies, p. 376.
® See Lappenberg, Anglo-Norman Kings, p. 114. We find the name of these Warings, or Varangians, at Varengefjord in Norway, Varenge- ville in Normandy, V/ieringerwaard on the coast of Holland, and at many places in England. See p. 107, supra. On the etymology of the name see Strinnholm, Wikingzilge, vol. i. pp. 301, 312.
The Northmen
149
The Norman conquest of England has left few traces on the map. There was in no sense any colonisation, as in the case of the previous Saxon and Danish invasions; nor was there even such a general transference of landed property as took place in Normandy, and which is there so fully attested by the local names. The companions of the Conqueror were but a few thousands in number, and they were widely dispersed over the soil. A few Norman-French names, however, may be still pointed to as memorials of the conquest.^ Of these Richmond ^ in Yorkshire, and Montgomery ^ on the Welsh border, are the most conspicuous. At Malpas was a Castle built by the first Norman Earl of Chester to guard the “ bad pass ’’ into the valley of the Dee.“* Montford, or Montesfort, in Shropshire, and Mold in Flintshire, anciently Monthault® (Mons Altus), were also frontier fortresses ; Montacute Hill, in Somerset, has Mortaine’s Norman castle on its summit, and a Norman abbey at its foot. The commanding situation of Belvoir Castle justifies its Norman name. At Beaumont,® near Oxford, was a palace of the Nor- man kings; and at Fleshy (plaisir) in Essex, the seat of the High Constables of England, the ruins of the Norman keep are still visible.^ Beauchamp-Otton, near Castle Hedingham, bears the name of Ottone, the skilful goldsmith who fashioned the tomb of the Conqueror at Caen.® We find the Norman abbeys of Rievaux and Jorveaux in Yorkshire, Beaulieu in Hampshire, Delapre in Northamptonshire, and the Augustinian priory of Gracedieu in Leicestershire. The Norman family of St. Clare, or Clarence, has bestowed its name upon an English town, an Irish county, a royal dukedom, and a Cambridge college.® We have the names of Norman barons at Stoke-Mandeville, Carlton-
1 The only Anglo-Norman suffixes seem to be clere, manor ^ and courts as in Highclere, Beaumanoir, and Hampton Court. We have also a few names like Chester-le-Street, Bolton-le-Moor, and Laughton-en-le- Morthen.
2 Thierry, Conquest, p. 90. Henry IV. transferred to his Surrey palace the name of his Yorkshire earldom.
®The same story is told in another language by the Welsh name of Montgomery — Tre-faldwyn, or Baldwin’s Town. See Borrow, Wild Wales, vol. iii. p. 97.
* Ormerod, Hist, of Chester, vol. ii. p. 328 ; Charnock, Local Etymol, P- 173-
® Cambro-Briton, vol. i. p. 136.
® Gough’s Camden, vol. ii. p. 21. ’ Ih. pp. 121, 133.
* Palgrave, Normandy and England, vol. iv. p. 2.
* See Donaldson, English Ethnography, p. 60; Yonge, Christian Names, vol. i. p. 385. The Clarenceaux King-at-Arms had jurisdiction over the SiuToys, or men south of the Trent, and the Norroys’ king over those to the north of that river.
Words and Places
*50
Colvile, Minshall-Vemon, Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Newport-Pagnell, Bury-Pommeroye, Aston-Canteloupe, Stoke-Pirou, Acton-Tur- ville, and Nevilleholt. The names of Hurst Monceaux, Hurst Pierpoint, and Hurst Courtray all occur in the county of Sussex, where the Conqueror landed, and where the actual transfer of estates seems to have taken place to a greater extent than in other counties. Sussex is the only English county which is divided into rapes, as well as into hundreds or wapentakes. While the hundred seems to indicate the peaceful settlements of Saxon families, and the wapentake the defensive military organi- sation of the Danish intruders, the rape, as it would appear, is a memorial of the violent transference of landed property by the Conqueror — the lands being plotted out for division by the hrepp, or rope, just as they had been by Rolf in Normandy. Illam terram (Normandy) suis fidelibus funiculo divisit.^
There are some curious memorials of that influx of Anglo- Norman nobles into Scotland which took place during the reigns of David I. and Malcolm Canmore. In ancient records the name of Maxwell is written in the Norman form of Maccusville. The name of Robert de Montealt has been corrupted into Mowatt and Moffat; and the families of Sinclair, Fraser, Baliol, Bruce, Campbell, Colville, Somerville, Grant (le Grand), and Fleming, are all, as their names bear witness, of continental ancestr}^^ Richard Waleys — that is, Richard the Foreigner — was the ancestor of the great Wallace, and has left his name at Richard- tun in Ayrshire. The ancestor of the Maule family has left his name at Maleville, or Melville, in Lothian. Seton takes its name from a Norman adventurer called Say. Tankerton, in Clydesdale, w^as the fief of Tancard, or Tancred, a Fleming who came to Scotland in the reign of Malcolm IV. And a few village- names like Ingliston, Normanton, and Flemington, afford additional evidence of the extensive immigration of foreign adventurers which was encouraged by the Scottish kings.
^ Dudo, De Morihus Norm. Dummy apud Duchesne, Hist. Norm. Script. p. 85. The districts of Iceland are called Hreppar. The hyde, the Saxon unit of land, seems to have been a portion measured off with a thong ^ as the rape was with a rope. See Palgrave, Normandy and England, vol. i. p 692; vol. hi. p. 395; Robertson, Early Kings, vol. ii. p. 213.
2 See Buchanan, Scottish Surnames, pp. 42, 43 ; Palgrave, Normandy and England, vol. iii. Appendix, and vol. iv. p. 298; Dugdale, Chalmers, and the Charters. Skene, History of the Highlanders, vol. ii. p. 280, etc., attempts to disprove the supposed Norman origin of the Campbells and other Scottish families. He admits, however, the case of the Grants; vol. ii. p. 255.
CHAPTER IX
THE CELTS
Prevalence of Celtic Names in Europe — Antiquity of River-names— The roots Avon, Dur, Stour, Esk, Rhe, and Don — Myth of the Danaides — Hybrid composition, and reduplication of synonyms — Adjectival River-names: the Yare, Alne, Ban, Douglas, Leven, Tame, Aire, Cam, and Clyde — Celtic Mountain-names: cefn, pen, cenn, dun — Names of Rocks — Valleys — Lakes — Dwellings — Cymric and Gadhelic test- words — Celts in Galatia — Celts in Germany, France, and Spain — Euskarian Names — Gradual retrocession of Celts in England — Amount of the Celtic element — Division of Scotland between the Piets and Gaels — Inver and Aber — Ethnology of the Isle of Man.
Europe has been peopled by successive immigrations from the East. Five great waves of population have rolled in, each in its turn urging the flood which had preceded it further and further toward the West. The mighty Celtic inundation is the first which we can distinctly trace in its progress across Europe, forced onward by the succeeding deluges of the Romance, Teu- tonic, and Sclavonic peoples, till at length it was driven forward into the far western extremities of Europe.
r The Celts were divided into two great branches, which followed one another on their passage across Europe. Both branches spoke languages of the same stock, but distinguished by dialectic differences as great or greater than those which divide Greek from Latin, or English from German. There are living tongues belonging to each of these branches. The first, or Gadhelic branch, is now represented by the Erse of Ireland, the Gaelic of the Scotch Highlands, and the Manx of the Isle of Man; the second, or Cymric, by the Welsh of Wales, and the Brezonec or Armorican of Brittany, which is still spoken by a million and a half of Frenchmen.^
Although both of these branches of the Celtic speech now survive only in the extreme comers of Western Europe, yet, by the evidence of local names, it may be shown that they prevailed
^ Diefenbach, Celtica, ii. part ii. p. 162; Meyer, in Bunsen’s Philos, of Univ. History, vol. i. p. 145.
151
Words and Places
152
at one time over a great part of the continent of Europe^ before the Teutonic and Romance nations had expelled or absorbed the once dominant Celts. In the geographical nomen- clature of Germany, Switzerland, Italy, France, Spain, and Enlgand, we find a Celtic substratum underlying the superficial deposit of Teutonic and Romance names. These Celtic roots form the chief available evidence on which we can rely when investigating the immigrations of the Celtic peoples.
We shall now proceed to adduce a few fragments of the vast mass of evidence which has been collected by numerous indus- trious explorers, and which seems to justify them in their belief as to the wide extension of the Celtic race at some unknowm prehistoric period.
One class of local names is of special value in investigations relating to primaeval history. The river-names, more particu- larly the names of important rivers, are everywhere the memorials of the very earliest races. ^ These river-names survive where all other names have changed — ^they seem to possess an almost indestructible vitality. Towns may be -destroyed, the sites of human habitation may be removed, but the ancient river- names are handed down from race to race; even the names of the eternal hills are less permanent than those of rivers. Over the greater p^rt of Europe — in Germany,^ France, Italy, Spain — ^we find villages which bear Teutonic or Romance names, standing on the banks of streams which still retain their ancient Celtic appellations. Throughout the whole of England there is hardly a single river-name which is not Celtic.
The Celtic words which appear in the names of rivers may be divided into two classes. The first may be called the sub- stantival class, and the second the adjectival.
The first class consists of ancient words which mean simply water or river. At a time when no great intercommunication existed, and when books and maps were unknown, geographical knowledge must have been very slender. Hence whole tribes were acquainted with only one considerable river, and it sufficed, therefore, to call it “ The Water,’’ or ‘‘ The River.” Such terms were not at first regarded as proper names ; in many cases they only became proper names on the advent of a conquering race.
^ See Forstemann, in Kuhn’s Zettschrift fiir VergL Spr. vol. ix. p. 284; Monkhouse, Etymologies ^ p. 64; Muller, Marken d. VcUerl. p. 124; Schott, Deut, Col. p. 218.
* Almost every river-name in Germany is Celtic. Leo, Vorlesungen, vol. i, p. 198; Zeuss, Gram. Celt. vol. ii. p. 760.
The Celts
153
To take an example — the word afon. This is the usual Welsh term for a river. On a map of Wales we find at Bettws-y-Coed the ‘‘ Afon Llugwy/’ or^ as it is usually called by English tourists, the ‘‘ River Llugwy.’’ So also at Dolwyddelen we find the Afon Lledr, or River Lledr, and the Afon Dulas and the Afon Dyfi at Machynlleth. In England, however, the word avon is no longer a common name as it is in Wales, but has become a proper name. We have a River Avon which flows by Warwick and Stratford, another River Avon flows past Bath and Bristol, and elsewhere there are other rivers of the same name, which will presently be enumerated. The sarnie process which has converted the word afon from a common name into a proper name has also taken place with other words of the same class. There is, in fact, hardly a single Celtic word meaning stream, current, brook, channel, water, or flood, which does not enter largely into the river-names of Europe.
The second class of river-names comprises those which may be called adjectival. The Celtic words meaning rough, gentle, smooth, white, black, yellow, crooked, broad, swift, muddy, clear, and the like, are found in the names of a large proportion of European rivers. For example, the Celtic word garw, rough, is found in the names of the Garry, the Yare, the Yarrow, and the Garonne.
We may now proceed to enumerate some of the more impor- tant names which belong to either class.
I. Avon. This, as we have seen, is a Celtic word meaning
a river.’’ It is written aon in the Manx language, and ahhamn (pronounced avain) in Gaelic. We find also the ancient forms amhain ^ and auwon. This word has become a proper name in the case of numerous rivers in England, Scotland, France, and Italy. The Stratford Avon flows through Warwickshire and Worcestershire. The Bristol Avon divides the counties of Gloucester and Somerset. The Little Avon, also in Gloucester- shire, runs near Berkeley Castle. One Hampshire Avon flows past Salisbury to Christchurch, another enters the sea at Lyming- ton. We also have rivers called Avon or Evan in the counties of Devon, Monmouth, Glamorgan, Lanark, Stirling, Banff, Kincardine, Dumfries, and Ross. We find the Ive in Cumber-
^ Cognate to the Latin amnis. Ultimately afon is to be referred to the Sanskrit root ap, water, which we see in the names of the Punj-a6, or land of the “ five rivers; ” the Doab, the district between the “ two rivers,” Ganges and Jumna; as well as in the river-names of the Z-a&, and of the Dan-w6-ius, or Dan-«6-e.
Words and Places
154
land, the Anne in Clare, and an Inn in Fife and in the Tyrol. The Aune in Devon keeps close to the pronunciation of the Celtic word. The Auney, in the same county, is the Celtic diminutive ‘‘ Little Avon,” which we find also in the Ewenny in Glamorgan, the Eveneny in Forfar, the Inney in Cornwall, and the Aney in Meath. The Awe in Argyll, and the Ehen in Cumberland, are probably corrupted forms of the word Avon.
We find it in composition in the Aven-gorm in Sligo, the Aven- banna in Wexford, the Ban-on in Pembrokeshire, the Aven-bui in Cork, the Aven-more in Mayo and Sligo, and the Anton in Hampshire, as well, possibly, as in the case of the D-ove,^ the T-owy, the T-aff, the T-avy, the T-aw, and the D-ee, anciently the Y)eva?‘
A very large number of French river-names ^ contain the root of on. In Brittany we find the Aff, and two streams called Aven. There are two streams called Avon in the river system of the Loire, and two in that of the Seine. The names of the chief French rivers often contain a fragment — sometimes only a single letter — of this root, which may, however, be identified by a comparison of the ancient with the modern name. Thus, the Matrona is now the Marne, the Ax(?wa is the Ais^, the Sequawa is the Seme, the ^4;^tura is the Eure, the Iscawwa is the Yonne^ the Saucc>wa is the the Meduawa is the M.diyenne,
the Durawius is the Dordogm, the Garwwwa is the Gduconnt. The names of an immense number of the' smaller French streams end in on, onne, or one, which is probably a corruption of the root afon. In the department of the Vosges, for instance, we find the M-d^don, the Durbi^?w, the Angronne, and the YoXogne. In the department of the Alpes-basses we have the Verd^?w, the Jabrow, the Auon, the CdXavon, and the 'Sihone. In the depart- ment of the Ain there are the YoMdon, the Sevr^^n, the Solman, and the Ain. Elsewhere we have the Avenne, the Vilame, the Yienne, the Amon, the Axisonne, the Odon, the Iton, the Seraw, the AYtyr on, the Koscodon, the Msiionne, the ]oMxdanne, the 'Dowxon, and scores of similar names.
^ Compare the name of the Dovebridge over the Avon.
* This initial d ov t may be a fragment of an ancient preposition, as will be shown, p. 162, infra. These names are more probably to be referred to the Welsh dofj gentle; or dyfi^ smooth.
® There are some remarks on the Celtic river-names of France in a paper by Kennedy, in Philological Trans, for 1855, p. 166; Betham, Gael^ pp. 194-196; Astruc, Hist, de Languedoc^ p. 424; Thierry, Hist. Gaul. vol. ii. p. 2; Ferguson, River N antes ^ passim; Pott, Etymolog. Forsch. vol. ii. pp. 103, 528; Salverte, Essai sur les Noms, vol. ii. p. 289.
The Celts
*55
The same termination occurs frequently in the names of Ger- man streams^ as^ for example, in the case of the Lahw, anciently the Lohawa, the Is^«, anciently the Isawa, the Morn, anciently the Mermfl, and the Argm, anciently the Arg^/za,^ while the Drave and the Save preserve the latter instead of the former portion of the ancient word.
In Portugal we find the Avia, and in Spain the Abono or Avono. The Guadi-ana is the Anas of Strabo, with the Arabic prefix Wadi,
In Italy we may enumerate the ^z;mtia, now L’^z^mza, the Savo, now the Savom, the Ufens, now the Aufente, the Vomawus, now the Vomano, as well as the Amasmus, the Fibrmus, and the Avens.^
The names of Oundle (Avondale), Wand\^, ITawdsworth, TTawstead, TTazzsford, Ver^?zza, and Avignon, anciently Avemon, the town on the afon or stream of the Rhodtzz?us, or Rhone, ^ have all been thought to contain the same root.
II. Dur. Another word, diffused nearly as widely as afon, is the Welsh dwr, water.^ Prichard gives a list of forty-four ancient names containing this root in Italy, Germany, Gaul, and Britain. We find the Dour in Fife, Aberdeen, and Kent, the Dore in Hereford, the Duir in Lanark, the Thur in Norfolk, the Doro in Queen’s County and Dublin, the Durra in Cornwall, the Dairan in Carnarvonshire, the Durarwater and the Deargan in Argyle, the Dover or Durhtok in Nottinghamshire, the Glas- dur, or grey water, in Elgin, the Mother, or red water (Rhuddwr), in Sussex, the Cal^^^r,^ or winding water, in Lancashire (twice), Yorkshire, Cumberland, Lanark (three times), Edinburgh, Nairn, Inverness, and Renfrew, the Adder in Wilts, and two of the same name in Berwick, the Adur in Sussex, the Adar in Mayo, the ^oder in Wiltshire, the Ched^^ar in Somerset, the cascade of l^odore, the lakes of Win^f^rmere and D^rwent-water. The name Derwent is probably from dwr-gwyn, the clear water.®
^ Vilmar, OrtsnameUy p. 254.
2 Williams, in Edinburgh Transactions^ vol. xiii. p. 521; Essays, p. 70.
^ Salverte, Essai sur les Noms, vol. ii. p. 289.
* Brezonec and Cornish dour ; Gaelic and Irish dur, and dobhar, pro- nounced doar ; cf. the Greek vdu)p. On this root see Diefenbach, Celtica, i. p. 155; Adelung, Mithridates, vol. ii. p. 57; Davies, Celtic Researches, p. 207; Duncker, Orig. Germ. p. 55; Charnock, Local Etym. p. 93; Ferguson, River Names, pp. 37, 69; Ra^of, Neue Untersuchungen, p. 317; De Belloguet, Ethnogenie, vol. i. p. 218.
* Perhaps, however, from the Norse kalldr, cold.
* Whitaker, Hist. Whalley, p. 8 ; Charnock, Local Etym. p. 85 ; Williams, Edin. Trans, vol. xiii. p. 522; Essays,^ p. 72; Poste, Brit. Researches, p. 143, Ferguson prefers Baxter’s etymology, from the Welsh derwyn.
Words and Places
156
There is a river Dmvent in Yorkshire, another in Derbyshire, a third in Cumberland, and a fourth in Durham. The Darwen in Lancashire, the D^rwen in Denbighshire, the Daren t in Kent, and the Dart in Devon, are contractions of the same name,^ as well, possibly, as the Trent.
Dorchester was the city of the Dz^r-otriges, or dwellers by the water, and a second ancient city of Dorchester, in Oxford- shire, stands upon the banks of the Thames.
In France ^ we have the D^^ranius, now the Dordogne, the hnturdi, now the Eure, and the A/z^rus, now the Adour. The Alpine Durd^nc^, anciently the Drzzentia, reminds us of our English Derwents. We find the Thurr in Alsace and again in Switzerland, the Dzzrbion in the Vosges, the Dwrdan in Nor- mandy, the Dourdon and the Dourbit in the department of the Aveyron, as well as the Douron in Brittany.
In the North-western, or Celtic part of Spain, there are the Durms, now the Douro, the Duerm,, the Dzzraton, the Torio, the Terdi, the Tzzrones, and the Tormes.
In Italy are the Torre, the two Durias or Doras in Piedmont, and the Turia, a tributary of the Tiber. In the slightly changed form of ter we find the root dur in the names of the Trzzentum, now the Tronto, the Traens, now the Trzonto,^ as well as the Trebia, the Terms, the Termns, the Dnies/or, and the Ister,^
In Germany we find the Oder, the Drave, the Dwrbach, the Dwrrenbach in Wiirtemberg, the Dzzrnbach in Austria, the Dwrren- bronne near Eppingen,^ and the city of Marco Jwrum, now Duren.^
to wind. River Names ^ p. 141. I believe, however, that none of the Derwents are very tortuous, though they are all very clear.
^ That the Darent was anciently the Derwent is shown by the name of Derventio, the Roman station on the Darent. The further contraction into the form Dart is exhibited in the name of Dartford, the modem town on the same river. See Baxter, Glossarium, p. 103.
2 Pott, Etym. Forsch. vol. ii. p. 104; Philology Proc. vol. i. p. 107; King, Italian Valleys^ p. 75.
® Compare the name of the English Trent, anciently the Treonta.
* Rawlinson, Herodotus, vol. iii. p. 202. See however p. 157, infra.
® Mone, Celtische Forschungen, p. 68.
® In ancient Gaul we find many names of towns in which this root indicates that their sites were on the banks of rivers. We may specify, among others, Emo^wrum, SdXodurnm, Iciodurwm, 'Diwodurwm, Brevio- durxxm., Gano^iwnim, Velato^wrum, Antissoi^wrum, OcXodurMm, Brivo- dur\xm, Marco^iwrum, Dwronum, Dwrocatalaunum, and Veto^wrum. In the valley of the Danube we find Gabanoi^wrum, Brago^/wrum, Ehodurum, EcXodurMTO., Boioiwrum; and in Britain, Dwrovernum, Dwrobrivae, Dur- olevum, Dwfolitum, Dwrocornovium, Dwrocobrivium, and Dwrolipsus. Prichard, Researches, vol. iii. pp. 114-119. So Zurich, in Switzerland, is a corruption of Twricum, Solothurn of SaXodurum, and Winterthur of Vitodurum. Forstemann, Altdeutsches Namenbuch. vol. ii. p. 446; Keferstein, Kelt. Alt. vol. ii. p. 375,
The Celts
157
Stour is a very common river-name. There are important rivers of this name in Kent, Suffolk, Dorset, Warwickshire, and Worcestershire; we have the Stor in Holstein, the Stura, in Latium, is now the Store, and Stura is a very common river-name in Northern Italy. The etymology of this name Stour is by no means certain. In Welsh, words are augmented and intensified in meaning by means of the prefix Thus we have —
Stour, therefore, may be only the intensitive of dur. On the other hand, it is possible that by a common process of redupli- cation of synonyms, which will presently be discussed, the word Stour may be formed from a prevalent root — is, water; and dwr, water. There is also a further complication, arising from a Teutonic river-root st-r, which has been discussed by Forste- mann, a great authority He finds this root in the names of more than one hundred German streams, such as the Elster, Alster, Lastrau, Wilster, Ulster, Gelster, Innerste, Agistra, Halsterbach, Streu, Suestra, Stroo, Strobeck, Faster, Nister, and others.
III. Esk. The Gaelic and Erse word for water is uisge? This is represented in Welsh by wysg, a current, and by gwy or wy, water. This root, subject to various phonetic mutations, is found in the names of a vast number of rivers.^ There is an Esk in Donegal, in Devon, in Yorkshire, in Cumberland, in
^ Some forty instances of this augmentation may be found in Garnett’s Essays, p. 174; cf. Diefenbach, Celtica; i. pp. 90-96; Charnock, Local Etym. pp. 258, 269; Mayhew, German Life and Manners, vol. i. p. 557; Zeuss, (^am. Celtica, vol. i. p. 142. On the name Stour, see Ferguson, River Names, p. 58; and Boudard, Num. Iber. p. 127, who thinks it is the Euskarian ast-ur, rock water.
2 In Kuhn’s Zeitschrift fur V ergleichende Sprachforschung, vol. ix. pp. 276—289.
® Whisky is a corruption of Uisge-hoy, yeUow water.
* Diefenbach, Celtica, ii. part i. p. 327; Donaldson, English Ethnography, p. 39; Radlof, Neue Untersuchungen, p. 286. The word has been thought to have some Norse affinities. See Dietrich, in Haupt’s Zeitschrift, vol. v. p. 228.
Llwc, a lake;
Ber, a bar ;
Llac, lax ;
Crecian, to creak;
Crafu, to scratch ;
Pin, a point ;
Mwg, vapour (muggy);
Mai, light, fickle;
Pig, a peak, or point ;
Brig, a shoot ;
Yslwc, a slough.
Yspar, a spear.
Yslac, slack.
Ysgrec, a shriek. Ysgrafu, to scrape. Yspin, a spine. Ysmwg, smoke. Ysmal, small.
Yspig, a spike. Ysbrig, a sprig.
Words and Places
158
Dumfries, two in Forfarshire, and two in Edinburghshire. We have an Esky in Sligo, an Esker in King’s County and in Breck- nock, an Eskle in Herefordshire, and an Isle in Somerset. jE^thwaite Water, and Ea^^dale, in the Lake District, contain the same root, as well as the Ewes in Northumberland and Dumfries, the Ise near Wellingborough, the /^bourne, a tribu- tary of the Stratford Avon, the Easehyim in Yorkshire, the Ash- boume in Sussex, and the Ash in Hertfordshire and Wiltshire. In Bedfordshire and in Hertfordshire we have the Iz; the /^chalis was the ancient name of the Ivel, and the Tzja of the Tees} The Isis contains the root in a reduplicated form, and the 'Idivaesis, or Thames, is the broad Isis.” In Wales we have the river which the Welsh call the Wysg, and the English call the Usk. This Celtic word was Romanised into Isca, while another Isca in Devonshire, now the Exe, has given its name to Fleeter, Exmoor, and Exmouth. There is also an Ex in Hampshire and in Middlesex. The Somersetshire Axe flows by Oxbridge, and the Devonshire Axe gives its name to ^xminster, and ^xmouth. The ancient name of the Chelm must have also been the Axe, for Chelmsford was formerly Trajectus ad Axam, and Thaxted has been supposed to be a corruption of The Ax Stead. ^ The town of C/xbridge stands on the River Colne, a later Roman appellation, which apparently superseded the Celtic name Ux. The Ock joins the Thames near Oxford, the Oke is in Devon, and the Ban^rburn, near Stirling, has given its name to a famous battle-field. The few Gadhelic names in England are found chiefly toward the Eastern part of the island; here consequently we find three rivers called the Ouse,® as well as the Ousel, the Ousebum, the Use in Bucking- hamshire, Ugg Mere, and Os-ey Island. Osen^y ^ Abbey is on an island near Oxford. The Wisk and the Washhum in Yorkshire, the Guash in Rutland, the Wiss^y in Norfolk, and the local names of Wishiord, Wisl^y, lYzVAanger, Wz^borough, Wiskm. (water-island) in the Fens, formerly an island; IF/^tow and ^^beach, in the fens of Huntingdonshire, Wz^beach, and the Wash, seem to be derived from the Welsh wysg rather than from the Gaelic uisge.
In Spain there are the Esca and the E^la, the latter of which
^ More probably from the Gadhelic taise, moisture.
* Baxter, Glossariutn, p. 31.
* The Huntingdonshire peasant to this day calls the Ouse the Usey, thus preserving the ancient Gaelic form. Monkhouse, Etymologies^ p. 64.
The n is probably a relic of the Celtic innis, island, as in the case of Orkney. See p. 135, supra.
The Celts
159
we may compare with the two /^las in Scotland, the Isle in Somerset, and the Isle in Brittany, where also we find the /^ac, the Oust, the Cou^mon, and the Coue^an; and in other districts of France are the Esque, the Asse, the Ose, the hole, the Ishe, the Ousche, the Atsne, the ^w^onne, and the Achase.
There are several French rivers called the Aes or A6se. The /^ara, or Esisi, has become the Oise, the ^:x;ona is now the Atsne, the /^cauna is the Tonne, the Liger/5 is the Loire, and the Uxaiitis insula is the island of Ouessant or Ushant. The name of the town of Orange, near Avignon, is a corruption of Araf^ion.^
The /5ella is now the Y^^el, the Scaldt.? is the Scheldt, the VahaU*5 is the Waal. In Central Europe we have the Albzs now the Elbe, the Tanaz^ now the Don, the Bory^thenes now the Dana^per or DmVper, the Tyra^ now the Dana^ter or Dni^^ter^ the Tibwcus now the Thez5-, the /5-ter now the Danube, to which may, perhaps, be added the Hyphanz,?, the Hyphasz.?, the Phasz5, the Tiberz.?, the Terz^, the Isaums, the /^aphis, and the Isceus,
Among German streams we find the Ise, the Axe, the hen, the har, the Eisach, the E^chaz, the ^Save, the Ahse, the Ez^bach, the Ez^enbach, the Etschhach, the E^bach, the E^elbach; and a very large number of small streams bear the names of Etch- bach, Aschhadn, Eschelhaeh, and E^^r/ielbronn or E^^rAelbrunn* We find, also, the E^^eborn, the E^terbach, the Agshaeh, and the Etsch?
The word Etsch is a German corruption of the ancient name AUsis or Athesis, which the Italians have softened into the Adige, In Italy we find the Bed^^z.?, the Is now the Issa, the jEs\s> now the Fium^^ino (Flumen ^Esinum), the yE^arus now the Isaxo, the Natz^o now the Natz^one, the Galts^us now the Gale^o^ the Ver^iris now L’^?^a, the Osa which still retains its name un- changed, the Ausax now the Serchio, the Aprzz^a now the Ausa, and the Padusa a branch of the Po.^ The name of Istria — half land, half water — is derived from the Celtic roots is, water, and ter, terra; and Tri^^te, its chief town, exhibits a Celtic prefix tre, a dwelling, which will presently be discussed.^
From the closely related Welsh word gwy or wy (water), we may derive the names of the Wye in Wales and in Derbyshire,, and of the Wey in Hampshire, in Dorset, and in Surrey. The
^ Salverte, Essat sur les Noms, vol. ii. p. 289.
* See Donaldson, Varronianus,pp. 45-48; Mone, Celtische Forschungen, pp. 12, 13, 14,. 18; Ferguson, River Names, pp. 31-33.
* Arch. Williams, in Edinh. Trans, vol. iii. p. 519; Essays, p, 69.
* Pott, Etymol. Forsch. vol. ii. p. 233; Mone, Celt, Forsch, p. 224.
i6o
Words and Places
Llugwy (clear water), the Mynw^y (small water), the GdLrway (rough water), the Dowrdiz«;y (noisy water), the ^\wy (gliding water), the Conzf;ay (chief water), the Sowy, the Edze^y, the Onwy, the Ohvay, the Vrynze;y, are all in Wales ; the MedzfJay is in Kent, and the Solway on the Scottish border. There is an /vel (G^zVel) in Somersetshire and in Bedfordshire. The Solent was anciently called Yr wyth, the channel, and the Isle of Wight was Ynys yr wyth, the Isle of the Channel, from which the present name may possibly be derived.^ We find the FzV^bach, Wip- pach, and many similar names in Germany In France the Gy, the Gz^isave, and the Gui\, in the department of the Hautes Alpes, and the Guiers, in the department of the Ain, seem to contain the same root.^
IV. Rhe. The root Rhe or Rhin is connected with the Gaelic
rapid; with the Welsh swift; rhedu,to r Am, that
which runs : ^ and also with the Greek pew, the Sanskrit ri, and the English words run and rain,^
Hence we have the Rye in Kildare, Yorkshire, and Ayrshire, the Rea in Salop, Warwick, Herts, and Worcestershire, the Rey in Wilts, the Ray in Oxfordshire and Lancashire^ the Rhee in Cambridgeshire, the Rhea in Staffordshire, the Wrey in Devon, the Roy in Inverness, the Roe in Derry, the Rue in Montgomery, the Eryn in Sussex, the 7^<?den in Salop and Essex, and the ??zl)ble in Lancashire. We also find this root in the names of the Rhine (Rhenus), the Rhin, the Regen, the Rega, and the Rha- danau, in Germany, the 7?emach and the Reuss in Switzerland, the Regge in Holland, the j?^Aone in France, the Riga, in Spain, the Rha or Volga in Russia, the Endanus, now the Po, and the Rhenus, now the Reno, in Italy.
V. Don. Whether the root Don, or Dan, is connected with the Celtic afon, or whether it is an unrelated Celtic or Scythian
^ Walters, in Philological Proceedings , vol. i. p. 65. See, however, p. 67, supra.
^ Mone, Celtische Forsch. pp. 35, 36.
® The Welsh names of many aquatic animals contain the root gwy^ water, e.g. hwyad^ a duck; gwydd, a goose; gwfllemot, etc. Morris, in Gentle- man's Magazine for October 1789, p. 904. Quit is the Provencal term for a duck. Courson, Peup. Bret. vol. i. p. 32.
* Rhyn is a promontory, a point of land which runs out to sea. Penrhyn near Bangor, Rynd in Perth, Rhind in Clackmannan, Rindow Point near Wigton, the Rins of Galloway, Penryn in Cornwall, Rien in Clare, Rinmore in Devon, Argyle, and Aberdeen, and several Rins in Kerry, are all pro- jecting tongues of land.
® So the raindeer is the running deer. Cf. Diefenbach, Celtica, i. p. 56 ; Orig. Europ. p. 408; Pictet, Orig. Indo-Eur. vol. i. p. 136; Zeuss, Gram- matica Celtica, vol. i. p. 13; Astruc, Languedoc^ p. 448; Betham, Gael, p. 212.
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i6i
gloss, is a point which has not been decided. It appears, how- ever, that in the language of the Ossetes — a tribe in the Caucasus, which preserves a very primitive form of the Aryan speech — the word don means water or river If this be the true meaning of the word it enables us to assign an esoteric explanation to certain primaeval myths.^ Thus Hesiod informs us that Damns, the grandson of Poseidon and Libya (At^a, moisture), relieved Argos from drought : "'Apyo^ avvSpov cov Aavab? TroiTjo-ev evvSpov. Again, we are told that the fifty Danaides, having slain their husbands, the fifty sons of w^gyptus, on the wedding night, were condemned to carry water in broken urns to fill a bottomless vessel. This myth receives a beautiful interpretation as an esoteric exposition of a natural phenomenon, if we interpret the ancient gloss dan as meaning water. We then see that the Dansiides, daughters of Dan, are the waters of the inundation, which overwhelm the fifty provinces of Egypt in their fatal embrace, and for a penalty have to bear water up the mountain sides in their broken urns of cloud, condemned ceaselessly to endeavour to fill the valley, a bottomless gulf through which the river carries forth the outpourings of the clouds into the sea.
But whatever may be the signification of this root, we find it in a large number of the most ancient and important river- names.
On the Continent w^e have the Danube,^ the Dawastris, the Dawaster, or Dniester, the Danapris, Danasper, or Dnieper, the Don, anciently the Tanais, and the Donetz, a tributary of the Don, in Russia, the Rha^^cnau in Prussia, the Rho^^anus or Rhone, the Adonis, the Aredon in the Caucasus, the Tidone and the Tamxo, affluents of the Eri^fanus or Po, the Dur^^an in Normandy, the Don in Brittany, and the 'M.didon, the Y^xdon, the Inndon, the Odon, and the Roscoi^?n in other parts of France.
^ Arndt, Europ. Spr. pp. 117, 174, 241; cf. Hartshome, Salopia Antiqua^ p. 261; Wheeler, Geography of Herodotus^ p. 145. There is a Gadhelic word tain^ water. Armstrong says don is an obsolete Gaelic word for water, and that it is still retained in the Armorican. Compare the Sclavonic tonu^ a river-deep. Schafarik, Slawische Alterth. vol. i. p. 498. Ultimately, we may probably refer don to the conjectural Sanskrit word udan, water — which contains the root undy to wet. Hence the Latin unda. The Sanskrit udra^ water, comes from the same root und, and is probably the source of the Celtic dwr. Pictet, Orig. Indo-Eur, vol. i. p. 141.
2 Karl V. Muller, MythologiCy pp. 185, 312; Pott, Mytho-Etymologica, in Kuhn’s Zeitschrift fiir Vergleich. Sprachforsch. vol. vii. pp. 109-111; Gladstone, Homer ^ p. 366; Kelly, CuriositieSy pp. 142, 212; Creuzer, Symboliky vol. iii. p. 480; Preller, Griechische MythologiCy pp. 33-38.
® Zeuss, Gram. Celt. vol. ii. p. 994, thinks the root is the Erse dana,. strong. He is followed by Forstemann, Alt-deut. Namenbuchy vol. ii. p. 409; De Belloguet, Eth. p. 104; and Gluck, Kelt. Nameny p. 92.
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Words and Places
In the British Isles this word is found in the names of the Don in Yorkshire, Aberdeen, and Antrim, the BanJ^?« in Londonderry, the Dean in Nottinghamshire and Forfar, the Dane in Cheshire, the Dun in Lincolnshire and Ayrshire, the Tone in Somerset, and probably in the EJm in Yorkshire, Cumberland, Kent, Fife, and Roxburgh, the Davon in Cheshire and Glamorgan, the Devon in Leicestershire, Perth, Fife, and Clackmannan, and possibly the Tyne in Northumberland and Haddington, the Teign in Devon, the Tian in the Island of Jura, the Teane in Stafford, the Teyn in Derbyshire, and the Tynet in Banif.^
It thus appears that the names of almost all the larger rivers of Europe, as well as those of a very great number of the smaller streams, contain one or other of the five chief Celtic words for water or river, viz. —
1. Avon, or aon.
2. Dwr, or ter.
3. Uisge, or wysk, wye, is, es, oise, usk, esk, ex, ax.
4. Rhe, or rhin.
5. Don, or dan.
It will, doubtless, have been remarked that several rivers figure more than once in the foregoing lists; we find, in short, that two or even three of these nearly synonymous roots enter into the composition of their names.
Thus it seems probable that the name of the
|
Dan-as-ter, or |
1 contains roots |
Hypan-is . |
• (I) (3) |
|
|
Dn-ies-ter |
1 (5) (3) (2) |
Tan-ais |
• (5) (3) |
|
|
Rha-dan-au |
• • (4) (5) (I) |
Eri-dan-us |
■ (4) (5) (3?) |
|
|
Is-ter |
• • (3) (2) |
Ex-ter . |
• (3) (2) |
|
|
Rho-dan-us . |
• • (4) (5) (3?) |
Tyr-as . |
• (2) (3) |
|
|
Dan-ub-ius . |
• . (5) (I) (3?) |
Ax-ona . |
• (3) (I) |
|
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Dur-dan |
. • (2) (5) |
S-avone |
• (3) (i) |
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|
Dur-an-ius . |
• • (2) (I) (3?) |
Aus-onne . |
• (3) (1) |
|
|
Rhe-n-us |
• • (4) (I) (3?) |
Is-en |
• (3) (I) |
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|
Isc-aun-a |
• • (3) (I) |
Dour-on |
• (2) (i) |
|
|
Dan-as-per . |
• • (5) (3) |
S-tour . |
• (3?) (2) |
|
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Ter-ab-ia |
• • (2) (I) |
An-ton . |
• (I) (5) |
|
|
^ Some of these names may be from the Celtic tian |
, running water, or, |
perhaps, from Ta-aon, the still river — see p. 166, infra. The names of the Davon and the Tone show how dwr-avon^ by crasis, might possibly become D’avon, d-aon, or don. In many river-names we find a. d or a. t prefixed, which has been thought to be due to the Celtic preposition di, dOf or dUy which means at. The Tees, the Taff, the Tavon, are perhaps instances of this usage, which we see exemplified in the indisputable cases of Zermat, Andermat, Amsteg, Stanko rav Kw), Utrecht (ad trajectum), Armorica, Arles, etc. See pp. 78, 174; and Whitaker, Hist. Manchester, vol. i. p. 220; Hist. Whalley, p. 9; Zeuss, Gram. Celt. vol. ii. pp. 566, 595, 597, 626; Baxter, Glossarium, p. 8; Charnock, Local Etym. p. 269.
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Some of these cases may be open to criticism^ but the instances are too numerous to be altogether fortuitous. The formation of these names appears to be in accordance with a law/ which, if it can be established, will enable us to throw light on the process of slow accretion by which many of the most ancient river-names have been formed.
The theory supposes that, when the same territory has been subject to the successive occupancy of nations speaking different languages, or different dialects of the same language, the earliest settlers called the river, on whose banks they dwelt, by a word signifying in their own language ‘‘ The Water,” or “ The River.” As their language changed through conquest, or in the lapse of ages, this word was taken for a proper name, and another word for ‘‘ River ” or Water ” was superadded. This process of superimposition may have been repeated again and again by successive tribes of immigrants, and thus ultimately may have been formed the strange aggregations of synonymous syllables which we find in so many river-names. The operation of this law we may detect with certainty in the case of names unaffected, as are most of the names which have been cited, by the phonetic changes of many centuries. It will be well, therefore, to illus- trate this process in the case of some familiar and more modem names, where it must, beyond possibility of doubt, have taken place.
In the case of the Dur-beck in Nottinghamshire, and the Dur- bach in Germany, the first syllable is the Celtic dwr, water. The Teutonic colonists, who in either case dispossessed the Celts, inquired the name of the stream, and being told it was Dwr, the water, they naturally took this to be a proper name instead of a common name, and suffixed the German word beck or hach^ a stream. In the names of the Esk-water and the Dour-water in Yorkshire, we have a manifest English addition to the Celtic roots esk and dwr.
The Is-boume, the Ease-bum, the Ash-boume, the Wash- bum, and the Ouse-bum, present the Anglian hurne, added to various common modifications of the Celtic uisge.
In the name of Wan-s-beck-water we first find wan, which is a slightly corrupted form of the Welsh of on. The jr is, perhaps, a vestige of the Gadhelic uisge. As in the case of the Durbeck,
^ The existence of this law, hybrida compositio, as it was termed by- Baxter, who discovered it, has been strenuously denied. See, however, Donaldson, VarronianuSy pp. 46, 47; New CratyluSy p. 14; Rawlinson, Herodotus y vol. hi. p. 188; Mone, Celt. Forsch. p. 5; Davies, in Phil. Trans, for 1857, p. 91 ; Poste, Brit. ResearcheSy p. 144.
Words and Places
164
the Teutonic beck was added by the Anglian colonists, and the English word water was suffixed when the meaning of Wansbeck had become obscure, and Wansbeckwater, or Riverwaterriver- water, is the curious agglomeration which has resulted.^
The mountain at the head of the Yarrow is called Mountben- jerlaw. The original Celtic name was Ben Y air, or ‘‘ Yarrow Head/’ The Angles added their own word hlaw, a hill; and the mount is an Anglo-Norman addition of still later date.^
In the name of Brindon Hill, in Somersetshire, we have first the Cymric bryn, a hill. To this was added dun, a Saxonised Celtic word, nearly synonymous with bryn ; and the English word hill was added when neither bry7i nor dun wxre any longer significant words.
Pen-dle-hill, in Lancashire, is similarly compounded of three synonymous words — ^the Cymric fen, the Norse holl, and the English hill? In Pen-tlow Hill, in Essex, we have the Celtic pen, the Anglo-Saxon hlaw, and the English hill, Shar-pen-hoe-knoll, in Bedfordshire, contains four nearly synonymous elements. The names of Pin-how in Lancashire, Pen-hill in Somersetshire and Dumfriesshire, Pen-d-hill in Surrey, and Pen-law in Dum- friesshire, are analogous compounds.
Mon-gibello, the local name of Etna, is compounded of the Arabic gebel, a mountain, to which the Italian monte has been prefixed.
Trajan’s bridge, over the Tagus, is called the La Puente de Alcantara. Here we have the same process. Al Cantara means ‘‘ The Bridge ” in Arabic, and La Puente means precisely the same thing in Spanish.
In the case of the city of Nag-poor we have nagara, a city, and pur a, a city.
The Val de Nant, in Neufchatel, presents us with the Celtic nant and the French val, both identical in meaning. Hert-ford gives us the Celtic rhyd, a S)monym of the Saxon ford? In Holm-in Island there are three synonyms. We find, first, the Norse Mw; secondly, the Celtic ; and, lastly, the English island. Inch Island is an analogous name. In the case of the Isle of Shepp^y, Canv^y Island, Os^y Island, and Ramsay Island, we have the Anglo-Saxon ea, which is identical in meaning with the English island.
^ Donaldson, Varronianus ; New Cratylus, p. 14.
2 Garnett, Essays, p. 70.
® Davies, in Philolog. Trans, p. 218; Whitaker, Hist, of Whalley, pp.
7,8.
* Baxter, Glossarium, p. 69.
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165
In like manner, we might analyse the names of the Hill of Howth, the Tuskar Rock, Smerwick Harbour, Sandwick Bay, Cape Grisnez, Start Point, the Aland Islands, Hampton, Hamp- tonwick. Bourn Brook in Surrey, the Bach Brook in Cheshire, the Oehbach ^ in Hesse, Knock-knows, Dal-field, i^mwaird Head, the King-horn River, Hoe Hill in Lincoln, Mal-don (Celtic maol or moel, a round hill), Maserfield (Welsh maes, a field), Romn-ey Marsh (Gaelic ruimne, a marsh), Alt Hill (Welsh alii, a cliff ),2 and many others.
In short, it would be easy to multiply,, almost without end, unexceptional instances of this process of aggregations of synonyms ; but the cases cited may probably suffice to make it highly probable that the same process has prevailed among the Celtic and Scythian tribes of Central Europe, and that this law of hybrid composition, as it is called, may, without extrava- gance, be adduced in explanation of such names as the Rha-dan- au, or the Dn-ies-ter, and with the highest probability in cases like the Ax-ona or the Dur-dan.
It now remains briefly to consider the second or adjectival class of river-roots.
Two have been already mentioned. From the Welsh garw, rough,^ we obtain the names of the Gara in Sligo and Hereford, the Garry in Perth and Inverness, the Yare in Normandy, in Norfolk, in the Isle of Wight, and in Devon, the Garway in Carmarthen, the Gamere in Clare, the Gamar in Hereford, the Yarro in Lancashire, the Yarrow and the Yair in Selkirk,^ the Garve and the Gareloch in Ross, the Garonne, the Gers, and the Giron in France, and the Guer in Brittany.
From the Gaelic all, white, we obtain al-aon, “ white afon.’^ The Romans have Latinised this word into Alauna.^ In Lanca- shire the Alauna of the Romans is now the Lune.® There is another Lune in Yorkshire. We find a River Allen in Leitrim, another in Denbigh, another in Northumberland, and a fourth in Dorset. There is an Allan in Perthshire, and two in Roxburgh- shire. The Alan in Cornwall, the Allwen in Merioneth, the Elwin
^ Old High German, aha, water. See Vilmar, Orisnamen, p. 258.
* Davies, in Philolog. Tram, for 1857, p. 91.
® Gaelic and Irish, garbh.
* Comp^e the name of the monastery of J arrow, where Beda lived.
® See Diefenbach, Celtica, ii. part i. p. 310.
® Lancaster, anciently Ad Alaunam, is the castra on the Lune. The name of Alcester, which stands on the Ain, the Warwickshire Alauna, is written Ellencaster by Matthew Paris. See Baxter, Glossarium, p. 10.
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Words and Places
in Lanark, the Ellen in Cumberland, the Hen in Cork, and the Ain or Auln, which we find in Northumberland, Cumberland, Hampshire, Warwick, Roxburgh, and Berwickshire, are all modifications of the same name, as well as the Aulne and the Ellee in Brittany. The name of the Elbe is probably connected with the same root.
To the Gaelic and Erse han^ white, we may refer the Ben in Mayo, the Bann in Wexford, the Bane in Lincoln, the Bain in Hertford, the Aven-banna in Wexford, the Bawon (Ban Afon) in Pembroke, the Bana in Down, the Bandon in Cork and Londonderry, the Bannty in Yorkshire, the Bawac in Aberdeen, the Bflwoc-bum in Stirling, the Baune in Hesse, and the Bamtz in Bohemia.
The word dhu, black, appears in five rivers in Wales, three • in Scotland, and one in Dorset, which are called Dwlas. There are also two in Scotland and one in Lancashire called the and we have the DouldiS in Radnor, and the Dow\es in Shropshire.
From llevn, smooth, or from linn, a deep still pool, we obtain the names of Loch Leven and three rivers called Leven in Scot- land, beside others of the same name in Gloucestershire, York- shire, Cornwall, Cumberland, and Lancashire. To one of these words we may also refer the names of Loch Lyon in Perth, the River Lyon in Inverness, the Loin in Banfi, the Leane in Kerry, the Line in Cumberland, Northumberland, Nottingham, Peebles, and Fife, the Lane in Galloway, the Lain in Cornwall, and perhaps one or more of the four Lunes which are found in York- shire, Durham, and Lancashire.^ Deep pools, or lynns, have given names to Lincoln, King’s Lynn, Dublin, Glaslin, Linlith- gow, Linton, Killin, and Roslin.^
The word tarn, spreading, quiet, still, which seems to be related to the Welsh taw and the Gaelic tav, appears in the names of the Tawesis or Thames, the Tame in Cornwall, Cheshire, Lancashire, Stafford, and Bucks, the Tamar in Devon, the Tema in Selkirk, the Teme in Worcester, and perhaps ^ in those of the Taw in Devon and Glamorgan, the Ta Loch in Wexford, the Tay (anciently the Tavus) in Perth and Waterford, the Tavy in
^ The Diggles, also in Lancashire, is a corruption of the same name. Whitaker, Hist. Whalley, p. 9.
^ We know that the Lune is, in one case, a contracted form of Alauna, the white river. See p. 165, supra.
® Zeuss derives the name of the Lacus Lemanus from this root. Gram. Celt. vol. i. p. 100; De Belloguet, EthnogSnie, vol. i. p. 249.
* See p. 162, supra.
The Celts 167
Devon, and the Tave in Wales. Pliny tells us, Scythae vocant Mseotim Temarundam — the ‘‘ Broad Water.” ^
The widely-diffused root ar causes much perplexity. The Arar, as Caesar says, flows ‘‘ incredibili lenitate;” while, as Coleridge tells us, the Arve and the Arveiron “ rave ceaselessly.” We find, however, on the one hand, a Welsh word araf, gentle, and an obsolete Gaelic word ar, slow, and on the other we have a Celtic word arw, violent, and a Sanskrit root arb, to ravage or destroy. From one or other of these roots, according to the character of the river, we may derive the names of the Arw in Monmouth, the Are and the Aire in Yorkshire, the Ayr in Cardi- gan and Ayrshire, the Arre in Cornwall, the Arro in Warwick, the Arrow in Hereford and Sligo, the ^ray in Argyle, the ^ra-glin and the ^ra-gadeen in Cork, the Erve, the Arve, the Ourcq, the Arc, the Arriege, and the Arveiron, in France, the Arga, and three rivers called Arva. in Spain, in Italy the Amo and Era,, in Switzer- land the Aar and the Urbach, in Germany the Ohre, Ahr, Isar, Aura.o\i, Orre, Er\, Frla, ^rl, Or\di, Argen, and several mountain streams called the Are; besides the well-known ancient names of the Oams, the Aretxes, the Ar-ar-ar, the Naparis, the Ara,s, and the Jaxartes.^
The word cam,^ crooked, we find in the Cam in Gloucester and Cambridgeshire, the Camil in Cornwall, the Camlad in Shrop- shire, the Cambeck in Cumberland, the Camlin in Longford, and the Camon in Tyrone. Morcambe Bay is the crooked-sea bay, and Camden is the crooked vale. We have also the rivers Kamp and Cham in Germany, and the Kam in Switzerland.
To the Gaelic clith, strong, we may refer the Clyde and the Cludan in Scotland, the Clwyd, the Cloyd, and the Clydach, in Wales, the Glyde and several other streams in Ireland, and, perhaps, the Clitumnus in Italy
^ Donaldson, Varron. p. 51. We find a Sanskrit word, tdmara, water. The ultimate root seems to be /aw, languescere. Pictet, Orig. Indo-Europ. p. 142.
* See Latham, Germania, p. 13; Rawlinson, Herodotus, vol. iii. p. 202; Mone, Celt. Forsch. p. 204; Prichard, Researches, vol. iii. p. 132; Gliick, Kelt. Namen, p. 58; Radlof, Neue Untersuchungen, p. 285; De Belloguet, Ethnogenie, vol. i. p. 116; Forstemann, Ortsnamen, p. 32.
® Diefenbach, Celtica, i. p. no. This word was adopted into English, though it is now obsolete. So Sicinius Velutus says of the crooked reasoning of Menenius Agrippa, “This is clean kam;” to which Brutus replies, “ Merely awry.” Coriolanus, Act iii. scene i. The root appears in the phrase, arms in kembo, or a-kimbo. To cam, in the Manchester dialect, is to cross or contradict a person, or to bend anything awry. Kennett, Parochial Antiquities, Glossary, s. v. Camera; Whitaker, Hist. Manchester , vol. ii. p. 274; Davies, in Philolog. Proc. vol. vi. p. 129; Halliwell, Archaic Glossary, s. v. ; Gliick, Kelt. Namen, p. 34.
* Williams, Essays, p. 71, prefers the Welsh clyd, warm.
i68
Words and Places
There are many other clusters of river-names which invite investigation, but of which a mere enumeration must suffice.^ Such are the groups of names of which the Neath, the Soar, the May, the Dee, the Tees, the Cher, the Ken, the Frome, the Colne, the Irke, the Lid, the Lea, the Meuse, the Glen, and the Swale, may be taken as types. It is indeed a curious fact that a' unique river-name is hardly to be found. Any given name may immediately be associated with some dozen or half-dozen names nearly identical in form and meaning, collected from all parts of Europe. This might suffice to show the great value of these river-names in ethnological investigations. Reaching back to a period anterior to all history, they enable us to prove the wide diffusion of the Celtic race, and to trace that race in its progress across Europe.
For antiquity and immutability, the names of mountains and hills come next in value to the names of rivers.^ The names of these conspicuous landmarks have been transmitted from race to race very much in the same way, and from the same causes, as the names of rivers.
The modem Welsh names for the head and the back are pen and cejn. We find these words in a large number of mountain- names. The Welsh cefn^ (pronounced keven), a back, or ridge, is very common in local names in Wales, as in the case of Cefn Coed or Cefn Bryn. In England it is found in the Chevin, a ridge in Wharfdale; in Chevin Hill near Derby; in Keynton, a name which occurs in Shropshire, Dorset, and Wilts; in Chevening, on the great ridge of North Kent; in Chevington in Suffolk and Northumberland; also in Chevy Chase, and the Cheviot Hills; in the Gehenna Mons, now Les Cevennes, in France; and in Cape Chien, in Brittany.
The Welsh pen,^ a head, and by metonymy, the usual name
^ On river-roots see Ferguson, River Names of Europe ; Baxter, G/os- sarium; Chalmers, vol. i.; Altdeutsches N ammhuch^
vol. ii. ; Deutsehen Ortsnamen, pp. 31-37; Whitaker, History of Man- Chester^ vol. i. p. 220; History of Whalley, pp. 8, 9; Betham, Gael, pp. 205- 215; Vilmar, Ortsnamen, p. 254; Church of England Quarterly, No. 73, p. 153; Schott, Deutsch. Col. pp. 219, 225; Pictet, Orig. Indo-Eur. part i. pp. 1 19, 134-145; and the works of Pott, Arndt, Gluck, Diefenbach, De BeUoguet, Williams, Davies, Latham, Rawlinson, Donaldson, etc.
^ “ Helvellyn and Skiddaw rise as sepulchral monuments of a race that has passed away.** — Palgrave, English Commonwealth, vol. i. p. 451.
* See Diefenbach, Celtica, i. p. 104; Gllick, Kelt. Namen, p. 51; Boudard, Numat. Iber. p. 121; Morris, in Gentleman's Mag. for 1789, p. 905.
* From the root pen, originally a head or point, come probably, pinnacle, penny ( ?), pin, spine, and the name of the pine-tree. It is curious that the Cymric pyr, a fir, bears the same relation to the name of the Pyrenees
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169
for a mountain, is widely diffused throughout Europe. The south-easterly extension of the Cymric race is witnessed by the names of the Penn-ine chain of the Alps, the A-penn-ines, a place called Penne, anciently Pinna, in the high Apennines, and Mount Pindus, in Greece. The ancient name of Penilucus, near Villeneuve, is evidently a Latinised form of Pen-y-llwch^ the head of the lake.^ We find Penherf and the headland of Penmarch in Brittany, and there is a hill near Marseilles which is called La Penne. In our own island, hills bearing this name are very numerous. We have Penard, Penhill, and Pen in Somerset, Upper and Lower Penn in Staffordshire, and Pann Castle near Bridgenorth. The highest hill in Buckinghamshire is called Pen. One of the most conspicuous summits in Yorkshire is called Pennigant. Inkpen stands on a high hill in Berkshire. We have Pendleton and Penketh in Lancashire, Penshurst in Sussex; in Cumberland we find Penrith, the head of the ford; and in Herefordshire, Pencoid, the head of the wood. In Corn- wall and Wales the root pen is of perpetual occurrence, as in the cases of Penrhyn and Pendennis (Pen Dinas) in Cornwall, and Penmaenmawr, Pembroke,^ and Penrhos, in Wales.
In Argyleshire and the northern parts of Scotland the Cymric pen is ordinarily replaced by ben or cenn, the Gaelic forms of the same word.
This distinctive usage of pen and hen in local names enables us to detect the ancient line of demarcation between the Cymric and Gadhelic branches of the Celtic race. We find the Cymric form of the word in the Gram-/>faw-s, the Pentland Hills, the Pennagaul Hills and Penpont in Dumfries, the Pen of Eskdale- muir. Pen Craig in Haddington, Penwally in Ayrshire, and Pendrich in Perth. On the other hand the Gaelic ben, which is conspicuously absent from England,^ Wales, and South-eastern Scotland, is used to designate almost all the higher summits of the north and west, as, for instance, Bennevis, Benledi, Ben-
that pina does to those of the Apennines and Pennine Alps. Compare the Pyern mountains in Upper Austria, and the Ferner in Tyrol. In the case of many of the Pyrenean giants the topmost pyramid of each is called its ‘‘ penne.” Pena is the name for a rock in Spanish, and in Italian penna is a mountain summit. Diez, Etym. Worterh. p. 258. Cf. Quarterly Review, vol. cxvi. p. 12. On the root pen, see Diefenbach, Celtica, i. p. 170; Orig. Eur. p. 397; Keferstein, Kelt. Alt. vol. ii. p. 186; Adelung, Mithri- dates, vol. ii. p. 67; Forbes, Tour of Mont Blanc, p. 210; Zeuss, Gram. Celt. vol. i. p. 77; Wedgwood, in Philolog. Proceed, vol. iv. p. 259; Davies, ibid. vol. vi. p. 129; De Belloguet, Ethnogenie, vol. i. p.,73.
^ Robertson, Early Kings, vol. ii. p. 229.
* Pen-bro, the head of the land.
^ Ben Rhydding, in Yorkshire, is a name of very recent concoction.
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more, Benwyvis^ Benlomond, Bencruachan, and many more, too numerous to specify.
The Gadhelic cenn, a head, is another form of the same word. It is found in Kenmore,^ Cantire, Kinnaird, and Kinross, in Scotland, Kinsale and Kenmare in Ireland, in the English county of Kent, Kenne in Somerset, Kennedon in Devonshire, Kenton in Middlesex, Kencot in Oxfordshire, and Kencomb in Dorset.
The position of ancient Celtic strongholds is frequently indi- cated by the root dun, a hill fortress, a word which is closely related to the modem Welsh word dinas? The features of such a natural stronghold are well exhibited at Sion in Switzerland, where a bold isolated crag rises in the midst of an alluvial plain. Like so many other positions of the kind, this place bears a Celtic name. The German form Sitten is nearer than the French Sion to the ancient name SeJwwum, which is the Latinised form of the original Celtic appellation. In a neighbouring canton the ancient Ebrerf^wwum has become Yverdun, a place which, as well as Thun (pronounced Toon), must have been among the fortress- cities of the Celts of Switzerland. In Germany, Campo^^z^num is now Kemp-ten, and TaroJwwum, in the modem form of Dor- n-stadt, preserves only a single letter of the Celtic dun. The same is the case with Cdixrodunum (carraighdun, the rock fort), now Khar-n-burg, on the Danube; while Idunwm, on the same river, is now I-din-o. Thun-dorf and Dun-estadt also witness the eastern extension of the Celtic people.^ In Italy we find nine ancient names into which this Celtic root enters, as Vin- dinnm, Klim., and Re/ma.^ But in France, more especially, these Celtic hill-forts abounded. Augusto^^wwum is now Au-tun, and Julioz^wwum is Lou-dun near Poictiers. LugJwwum, on
^ Kenmore, the “ great summit,” from the Gaelic mor, or the Welsh mawr, great. This name is found also in Switzerland. There is a moim- tain called the Kamor in Appenzell, and another called the Kammerstock between Uri and Glarus. Mont Cenis was anciently Mons Cinisius Geneva is probably cenn afon, the head of the river. See Mone, Celtischi Forschungen, p. 27.
^ Gliick, Kelt. Namen, p. 139; Diefenbach, Celtica^ i. p. 157; Orig. Eur. pp. 325-328; Adelung, M ithri dates , wo\. ii. p. 57; Holtzmann, und Germanen, p. 100; Menage, Origines, pp. 264-267; Forstemann, Alt- deutsches Namenbuch, vol. ii. p. 442 ; Cambro- Briton, vol. iii. p. 43. From the Celtic the root has penetrated into Italian and Spanish as duna, into English as down, and into French as dune. The Dhuns of the Himalayas, as Kjarda Dhun, Dehra Dhun, etc., seem to be related words. Diez, Etym. Worterb. p. 129; Lassen, Indische Alterth. vol. i. pp. xlv, 48.
® See Mone, Celtische Forschungen, p. 68. The ancient name of Belgrade was Segodunum, Seigha-dun, equivalent to Hapsburg, or Hawks’-hill. Leo, Vorlesungen, vol. i. p.»i95.
^Williams, Edinburgh Proceedings, vol. xiii. p. 532; Essays, p. 80. Cortona is evidently Caer-dun.
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171
the Rhone, is now Lyons; Lugt^wnum or LugoJmum, in Holland, is now Leyden; and Lugit^wwum, in Silesia, is now Glogau. The rock of Laon, the stronghold of the later Merovin- gian kings, is a contraction of Laut^wwum.^ Novioi^zmum, the “ new fort,’’ is a common name : one is now Noyon, another Nevers, another Nyon, another Jubleins. Melo^^wnum (meali- dun,^ the hill fort), now Melun, Ytrodunnm, now Verdun, and Uxellot^t^wum in Guienne, were also Celtic strongholds.
In England there seem to have been fewer Celtic fortresses than in France. l^nduuMm or Lon^/mium, the fortified hill on which St. Paul’s Cathedral now stands, is now Lon-don. Lex-don, near Colchester, seems to have been Legionis dunum ; ^ and CdcrciuXodunvLm is probably Mal-don, in Essex.^ Sorbio- dunum, now Old Sarum; Branno^^^^mim, now Brancaster; l,iox\dunum, now Carmar-then; Rigiadunum, perhaps Ribble- chester; 'Koxidunnm, probably Seaton; and Tdiodunum, now Dun-dee, were all British forts which were occupied by the Romans. The same root dun is found also in Dunstable, Dun- mow, and Dundry Hill in Somerset. In Scotland we have Dumblane, Dumfries, Dunkeld, the ‘‘ fort of the Celts,” and Dumbarton, the ‘‘ fort of the Britons.” In Ireland we find Dundrum, Dundalk, Dungannon, Dungarvon, Dunleary, Dun- lavin, and scores of other names, which exhibit this word. It was adopted by the Saxons from the Celts, and, in accordance with the genius of their language, it is used as a suffix instead of as a prefix, as is usually the case in genuine Celtic names. We have instances in the names of Huntingdon, Farringdon, and Clarendon.
The Celtic languages can place the substantive first and the adjective last, while in the Teutonic idiom this is unallowable. The same is the case with substantives which have the force of adjectives. Thus the Celtic Strathclyde and Abertay corre- spond to the Teutonic forms Clydesdale and Taymouth. This usage often enables us to discriminate between Celtic and Saxon roots which are nearly identical in sound. Thus, Balbeg and Strathbeg must be from the Celtic beg, little ; but Bigholm and Bighouse are from the Teutonic big, great. Dairy, Ddgain, Dalkeith, Daleaglis, Dolberry in Somerset, and Toulouse must
^ Palgrave, England and Normandy^ vol. ii. p. 7; Kennedy, in Philolog. Trans, for 1855, p. 170; Salverte, Essai sur les Noms, vol. ii. pp. 265, 266. See p. 174, infra.
^ Gliick, Kelt. Nam. p. 139.
® Baxter, Glossarium, p. 174.
* Horsley, Brit. Rom. p. 31; Gough’s Camden, vol. ii. pp. 122, 135.
G 517
Words and Places
172
be from the Celtic dol, a plain ; while Rydal, Kendal, Mardale, and Oundle, are from the Teutonic dale, a valley.^
The Welsh word hryn, a brow ^ or ridge, is found in Brandon, in Suffolk, which is the Anglicised form of Binas Bran, a common local name in Wales. A ridge in Essex is called Brandon. Breandown is the name of a high ridge near Weston-super- Mare. Brendon Hill forms part of the great ridge of Exmoor. Bimwood Forest, in Buckinghamshire, occupies the summit of a ridge which is elevated some 300 feet above the adjacent country. Braintree in Essex, and Brinton and Brancaster in Norfolk (anciently Brannodunum), contain the same root, which is found in numerous Swiss and German names, such as Brannberg, Brandenburg, Brendenkopf, and the Brenner in the Tyrol.^
Penrhos, a name which occurs in Wales and Cornwall, contains a root — rkos, a moor ^ — ^which is liable to be confused with the Gaelic ros, which signifies a prominent rock or headland. Ross in Hereford and in Northumberland, Rosneath by Loch Long, and Rosduy on Loch Lomond, are all on projecting points of land. Every Rigi tourist will remember the projecting preci- pice of the Rossberg, in Canton Schwytz, whose partial fall overwhelmed the village of Goldau. There are six other moun- tains of the same name in Germany.^ To the same source we may probably refer the names ® of Monte Rosa, Piz Rosatsch, Roseg, and Rosenlaui in Switzerland, and Rostrenan in Brittany. In our own islands we find this root in the names of Wroxeter, Roslin, Kinross, Cardross, Montrose, Melrose, Roxburgh, Ard- rossan, and Roscommon.
Craig, a rock, so common in Welsh names, is found in Crick in Derbyshire and Northampton, and Cricklade in Wilts. In Ireland this word takes the form carraig, as in the case of Carrick- fergus. The root is probably to be found in the name of the
^ See Zeuss, Grammatica Celtica^ vol. ii. pp. 824, 825, 862; Chalmers, Caledonia^ vol. i. p. 492; Robertson, Early Kings ^ vol. ii. p. 244.
^ Cf. the Sanskrit hhr'Ci^ eyebrow. The English word hrow, the Scotch hrae^ and the old German hrdwa, all seem to be connected with this root. See Diefenbach, Celtica, i. p. 178; Vergl. Worterh. vol. i. pp. 316-318.
® Mone, Celtische Forschungen, pp. 15, 16.
* The rush is the characteristic moorland plant. The Latin rus is a cognate word, and indicates the undrained moorland condition of the country.
® Mone, Celtische Forschungen, p. 127.
® Some of these may be the “ red ” mountains. The red hue of Monte Rosso, a southern outlier of the Bernina, is very markedly contrasted with the neighbouring “ black peak ’’ of Monte Nero.
The Celts
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three ranges called respectively the Graian/ the Camic, and the Karavanken Alps. The prefix Kar is very common near Botzen.^ In Savoy it takes the form crau. This form also appears in the name of a rocky district between Arles and Marseilles, which is called La Crau.^
ToVy a projecting rock, is found in the names of Mount Taurus, Torbay, and the Tors of Devonshire and Derbyshire.^ The higher summits of the Tyrol are called Die Tauntn.
The word ard, high, great, which forms the first portion of the name of the legendary King Arthur,^ occurs in some 200 Irish names,® as Ardagh, Ardglass, and Ardfert. In Scotland we have Ardrossan, Armeanagh, Ardnamurchar, and Ards. The name of Arran, the lofty island, has been appropriately bestowed on islands off the coast of Scotland and Ireland, and it attaches also to a mountain in Wales. The Lizard Point is the high cape.*^ In combination with the word den, a wooded valley, it gives us the name of the Forest of Arden in Warwickshire and in York- shire, and that of the Ardennes, the great forest on the borders of France and Belgium. Auveme is probably ar fearann, the
high country.’’®
The word cwm ® is very frequently used in Wales, where it denotes a cup-shaped depression in the hills. This word, in the Saxonised form combe, often occurs in English local names, especially in those counties where the Celtic element is strong. In Devonshire we have Ilfracombe, Yarcombe, and Combe Martin; and the combes among the Mendip Hills are very
^ Petronius tells us that this name means a rock. See Diefenbach, Celtica, i. p. 104; Adelung, Mithridates, vol. ii. p. 54; Keferstein, Kelt. Alt. vol. ii. p. 186; Radlof, Neue Untersuchungen, p. 312; De Belloguet, Ethnogenie, vol. i. p. 249.
Gilbert and Churchill, Dolomite Mountains^ p. 84.
® According to Pliny, the Scythian name of Caucasus was Grau-casis.
* We find Yes Tor, Fur Tor, Hey Tor, Mis Tor, Hessary Tor, Brent Tor, Hare Tor, and Lynx Tor, in Devon; and Row Tor, Mam Tor, Adyn Tor, Chee Tor, and Owlar Tor, in Derbyshire. Hentoe, in Lan- cashire, is a corruption of Hen Tor. See Diefenbach, Celtica, ii. pt. i. pp. 337, 340.
^ Yonge, Christian Names, vol. ii. p. 125.
® Sullivan, Dictionary of Derivations, p. 282.
’ Baxter, Glossarium, p. 186.
* Thierry, Hist. Gaul. vol. i. pp. xxxvi, 5; Keferstein, Kelt. Alt. vol. ii. P. 295.
* A comb, a measure for corn, and the conib of bees, are both from this root, which is found in several local dialects in the Celtic parts of France, Spain, and Italy, as, for example, the Piedmontese comba. Diez, Etym. Wort. p. 107; Diefenbach, Celiica, i. p. 112; Gllick, Kelt. Namen, p. 28; Kemble, Cod. Dipl. vol. iii. p. xvi.
Professor Leo, however, maintains the Anglo-Saxon combe was not adopted from the Celtic cwm. Anglo-Saxon Names, p. 83.
Words and Places
174
numerous. The Celtic county of Cumberland has been sup- posed to take its name from the comhes with which it abounds.^ Anderson, a Cumberland poet, says of his native county : —
There’s Cwwwhitton, Cwwwhinton, Cwwranton, Cwwrangan, Cwwrew, and Cumcatch,
And mony mair Cums i’ the County,
But nin wi* Cwwdivock can match.” *
High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, Combe in Oxfordshire, Appledurcomb, Gatcomb, and Compton Bay, in the Isle of Wight, Facomb and Combe in Hampshire, and Compton,^ Gomshall, and Combe, in Surrey, are instances of its occurrence in districts where the Celtic element is more faint than in the west: and abroad we find the root in the name of the Buy de Bellecombe in Cantal, and not improbably even in the name of Como.
The Welsh Ilwch, a lake, morass, or hollow, corresponds to the Scotch loch and the Irish lough. This word constitutes the first syllable of the common ancient name Lugdunum, which has been modernised into Lyons and Leyden. We can trace the first portion of the Romanised Celtic name Luguballium in the mediaeval Caerluel which superseded it, and which, with little change, still survives in the modern form Carlisle. The lake which fills a remarkable bowl-shaped crater in the Eifel district of Germany is called Laach. We find the same root in Lukote- kia, Lukotokia, or Lutetia, the ancient name of Paris
The Cymric prefix tre, a place or dwelling,^ is a useful test- v/ord, since it does not occur in names derived from the Gaelic or Erse languages.® It occurs ninety-six times in the village-
^ See, however, p. 67, supra.
2 Sullivan, Dictionary of Derivations, p. 286.
2 There are twenty-three parishes of this name in England.
* Old Paris was confined on the island which divides the Seine into two branches. The name seems to be from Ilwch, and toki, to cut. Prichard, Researches, vol. iii. p. 132. From the related Welsh word llaith, moist, we have the name of Arles, anciently Arelate, the town “ on the marsh.” See p. 78, supra; Gliick, Kelt. Namen, pp. 30, 114, 115; Pott, Etym. Forsch. vol. ii. pp. 42, 536; Astruc, Hist, Languedoc, p. 424; Menage, Origines, p. 57; Davies, Celtic Researches, pp. 221, 500; Radlof, Neue Untersuch- ungen, p. 290; De Belloguet, Ethnogenie, vol. i. p. 115.
® The Tref or Hamlet was the primary division of a British sept.
® It is related to the Irish treabh, a clan, and, more distantly, to the Latin trihus. Mone, Celtische Forsch. p. 204; Leo, Vorlesungen, vol. i. p. 149; Diefenbach, Celtica, i. pp. 146, 147; Williams, Essays, p. 85; Gerville, Noms, p. 225; Latham, Germania, p. 98; Pictet, Orig, Indo-Europ. vol. ii. p. 291; Gliick, Kelt. Namen, pp. 39, 40.
The Celts
17s
names of Cornwall/ more than twenty times in those of Wales ; and is curiously distributed over the border counties. We find it five times in Herefordshire, three times in Devon, Glouces- ter, and Somerset, twice in Shropshire, and once in Worcester, Yorkshire, Lancashire, Cumberland, and Northumberland.^ It is frequent in Brittany, it occurs some thirty times in other parts of France, and twice or thrice in the Celtic part of Spain.^ Treves, anciently Augusta Tr^virorum, Troyes, anciently Civitas Tricassium, and Tricastin, near Orange, exhibit this widely- diffused Cymric root. The tribe of the .Duro/nges, the dwellers by the water, have given a portion of their name to Dorset, and the A/f abates have bestowed theirs upon Arras and Artois. In Italy we find the name Treba, now Trevi, Trebula, now Treglia, Tresso, Treviso, Trebbia, and Trieste, besides Trient in the Italian Tyrol, and other similar names in the most Celtic part of Italy, near the head of the Adriatic.
Bod, a house, is very common in Cornwall,^ and appears also in Wales. Ty means a cottage, and is universally prevalent in Wales, though it enters into few important names. In Corn- wall it takes also the forms Chy and, Ky,^ and in Brittany it appears as Qui and Cae,^
Llan, an inclosure, and hence, in later times, the sacred in- closure, or church, is also a useful Cymric test-word. It occurs ninety-seven times in the village-names of Wales, thirteen times in those of Cornwall, in Shropshire and in Herefordshire seven times, in Gloucestershire four times, and in Devon twice. It is also found in the Cymric part of Scotland,’* and is very common in Brittany.®
^ More than a thousand times, if we include hamlets and single home- steads. Hence it enters into a vast number of Cornish territorial sur- names. There is an old adage which says: —
“ By Tre, Pol, and Pen,
You may know the Cornish men.”
2 We have, for example, such names as — Trefonen, Tre-evan, Tretire, Trevill, and Trewen, in Herefordshire; Trebroader in Shropshire; Tre- borough in Somerset; Treton in Yorkshire; Trebroun in Berwickshire; Trehorn in Cunningham, in Ayrshire; Tret own in Fifeshire; Tregallon in Kirkcudbright ; Treuchan in Perthshire. Such names as Uchiltre in Ayr- shire, Wigtonshire, and Linlithgow; Wavertree in Lancashire; Braintree in Essex; Oswestry in Shropshire; and Coventry in Warwickshire, may, or may not, contain this root. The substantive in Celtic names is usually, but not invariably, the prefix. See p. 171, supra.
* E.g. Trevento, Contrebia. * E.g. Bodmin, the stone house.
® E.g. Chynoweth, the new house, Kynance, the house in the valley. Pryce, Arch. Cornu-Brit. sub voc.
® E.g. Quiberon. E.g. Lanark and Lanrick.
* E.g. Langeac, Lannion, Landerneau, Landivizian, Lanoe.
Words and Places
176
The original meaning of Ian was probably not an inclosure, but a level plain/ such as the Landes, the vast sandy flats near Bayonne, or the Llanos, the sea-like plains of South America. In a mountainous country like Wales such level spots would be the first to be inclosed, and it is easy to perceive the process by which the transition of meaning might be effected. The root, in its primary meaning, appears in the name of Mi-lan, which stands in the midst of the finest plain in Europe. The Latin name Medio/awum, probably embodies, or perhaps partly translates, the ancient enchorial word.^
The Celtic word man, a district, is probably to be sought in Maine, Mans, Mantes, and Mayenne in France, in Mantua in Italy, in La Mancha and Manxes in Spain, in England in Mans- field, in Mancunium, now Manchester, in Manduessedum, now Mancester, as well as in Mona, the Menai Straits, the Isle of Man, and several Cornish names.®
Nant, a valley, is a common root in the Cymric districts of our island, as in Nant-frangon, the beavers’ valley, in Camarv^on- shire; or Nantglyn in Denbighshire. Nan Bield is the name of a steep pass in Westmoreland, and Nantwich stands in a Cheshire valley. In Cornwall we find Nans, Nancemellin, the valley of the mill. Pennant, the head of the valley, and Trenance, the town in the valley. It is also found in Nantua in Burgundy, Nancy in Lorraine, Nantes in Brittany, and the Val de Nant in Neufchatel. All Chamounix tourists will remember Nant Bourant, Nant d’Arpenaz, Nant de Taconay, Nant de Gria, Nant Dant, Nangy, and the other nants or valleys of Savoy, which were once, as this word proves, possessed by the same people who now inhabit the valleys of North Wales
^ Cf. Talbot, Eng. Ety. p. 55; Pryce, Arch. Cornn-Brit. s. v. Our words lawn and land come from the same ultimate root. Compare how- ever the Persian Idn, a yard. Pictet, Orig. Indo-Europ. vol. ii. p. 19.
^ Niebuhr, Lectures on Geography and Ethnology ^ vol. ii. p. 235. Leo, Vorlesungen^ vol. i. p. 194, makes Milan meiden llan, the great temple. Adelung, Mithridates, vol. ii. p. 64, thinks the first syllable is medu^ a low place. See Salverte, Essai sur les Noms, vol. ii. p. 279; De Belloguet, Ethnogenie, vol. i. p. 222.
® See Philolog. Proceed, p. 118. Mona and the Isle of Man are perhaps from the Welsh mon^ separate. Cf. the Greek fidvos. Cambro-Briton, vol. iii. p. 170; Notes and Queries, 2nd series, vol. ii. p. 20.
‘Smith, Diet, of Gr. and Rom. Geogr. sub voc. Nantuates; Diefenbach, Celtica, i. p. 82; Court de Gebelin, Monde Prim. p. xxiv; Thierry, Hist. Gaul. vol. ii. p. 34; Adelung, Mithridates, vol. ii. p. 64; De Belloguet, Ethnogenie, vol. i. p. 21 1. The singular way in which this root n-ant is confined to Wales and the region of the High Alps has suggested the doubt whether it be an original Cymric gloss, or not rather one adopted from an earlier Liguro- Iberian wave of pooulation. See Robertson, Scot- land under her Early Kings, vol. ii. p. 223.
The Celts
177
The ancient kingdom of Gwent comprised the counties of Monmouth and Glamorgan, and Monmouth still locally goes by this name. A Newport newspaper is called the Star of Gwent. The word denotes an open champaign country, and the uncouth Celtic word was Latinised by the Romans into Venta. Venta Silurum is now Caer-went in Monmouthshire, Venta Belgarum is now Win-chester, and Bennaventa is now Da-vent-ry. The Veneti were the people who inhabited the open plain of Brittany, and they have left their name in the district of La Vendee and the town of Vannes. The vast plain at the mouth of the Po, where Celtic names abound, has from the earliest times been called Venetia,^ a name which may probably be referred to the same root, as well perhaps as Beneventum, now Benevento, and Treventum, now Trivento.^
Most of the Celtic roots which we have hitherto considered are distinctively Cymric rather than Gaelic or Erse. Such are cefUy bryn, cwm^ llan, tre, nant, and gwent. Dun and Ilwch are common to both branches of the Celts, while the Gaelic ben, cenn, and carraig are closely related to the Cymric pen and craig.
The next root to be considered is decisively Gadhelic, and is, therefore, very useful as a test-word in discriminating between the districts peopled by the two great branches of the Celtic stock.
The word maghf a plain or field, is found in more than a hundred Irish names, such as Magh-era, May-nooth, Ar-magh. On the Continent it is found in many ancient and modem names In Germany we find Magetoburgum, now Mag-deburg; Mogon-
^ Vannes and Venetia may possibly be from venna^ a fisherman. See, however, p. 72, supra. Mommsen thinks the Veneti of the Adriatic were not Celts, but Illyrians. Hist. Rome, vol. ii. p. 76.
^ See Guest, On Early Settlements in South Britain, in Proceedings of Arch. Instit. for 1849, p. 33; Guest in Philolog. Pr. vol. i. p. 10; Archdeacon Williams, Ed. Trans, p. 535; Essays, p. 82; Cambro-Briton, vol. i. pp. 17, 168; Diefenbach, Celtica, ii. pt. i. p. 343; Mone, Gesch. Heidenth. vol. ii. p. 424. *
® Sanskrit mahi, terra. The Welsh form is maes, as in Maes Garmon, Mesham, Maesbury, Maserfield, Masbrook, Woodmas. The Maes or Meuse is the river of meadows. The English math, and to mow, and the Latin meto are cognate words. See Diefenbach, Celtica, i. p. 77; Mone, Celtische Forschungen, p. 228; Sullivan, Diet, of Derivations, p. 291; Astruc, Hist. Languedoc, p. 437; Pictet, Orig. Indo-Europ. vol. ii. p. loi; Gliick, Kelt. Namen, pp. 123-125; Zeuss, Grammatica Celtica, vol. i. P. 5.
* The suflSix magus occurs forty-seven times in Prichard's lists. Researches, vol. iii.
Words and Places
178
tiacum, now Mai-ntz, and other names and in North-eastern France this root was equally common. ^
The chief Cymric roots are found scattered over Spain, Northern Italy, Switzerland, and Southern Germany; but the root maghy the Gadhelic test-word, seems to be confined almost entirely to the district of the Lower Rhine and its tributaries. In Switzerland it does not appear,^ and in Italy it occurs only in the district peopled by the intrusive Boii.^ In Southern and Western France it hardly occurs at all, and it is found only once or twice in Britain.^ We may therefore conclude that while the Cymry came from the region of the Alps, the Gadhelic branch of the Celts must have migrated from the valleys of the Rhine and the Moselle. It seems to have been from this district that the earliest historic movement of the Celts took place. Three Celtic tribes burst through the Alps; they pillaged Rome, and, after returning to Illyria for a while, they broke in upon Greece, and plundered the treasures at Delphi.® They settled for a time in Thrace, where we have local traces of a still earlier abode of a Celtic people, and then crossing the Bosphorus, they took possession of the central parts of Asia Minor, to which they gave the name of Galatia, the land of the Gael, and where they long
^ E.g. Marcowa^us, now Marm^^gen, Noviowagus (Newfield), now Niw^gen, Rigofmtgus (Kingsfield), now Rheinwagen, Borbetowagus, now Worms, and Durnomagus, a place near Cologne.
^ We have it in Rotowagus, now Rouen, Noiom<^gus, now Nemours, Noviowagus Lexoviorum, now Lisieux, Caesaromagus, now Beauvais, Julio wagus, now Angers, Argentom^gus, now Argentow, Catoriwagus, now Chorges, and Sermanicowagus, now Chermez.
®The Swiss form mat^ a meadow, which appears in Zermat and Andermat, is found only in the Cymric, and not in the Gaelic portions of Great Britain. E.g. Mathern in Monmouth and in Hereford.
^ We have Rigowagus near Turin, Bodincow«gus on the Po, and Cameliowagus near Placentia.
^ We have Magintum, now Dunstable. Close to the town is an ancient earthwork, called the Maiden Bower, or the Maidning Bourne, which seems to be a corruption of the Celto-Saxon name Mageburg. See Gough’s Camden^ vol. ii. pp. 49, 55. The original name of CaBsarowflgus was probably Dunomagus, as is indicated by the modern name Dunmow. Sitow<zgus is, perhaps, Thetford. The position of these places is a strong corroboration of the opinion held by many Celtic scholars, that East Anglia was Gaelic rather than Cymric. See various Papers by the Rev. J. Davies, in the Transactions of the Philological Society ; and Davies, Celtic Researches, p. 203.
® See Contzen, Wanderungen der Kelten, pp. 97-262 ; Conybeare and Howson, Life of St. Paul, vol. i. p. 284; Zeuss, Die Deutschen, pp. 180- 184; Rawlinson, Herodotus, vol. iii. p. 190; Arnold, History of Rome, vol. i. p. 522; Niebuhr, History of Rome, vol. ii. p. 524; Latham, Germania, pp. 83, 98; Prichard, Eastern Origin of Celt. Nat. pp. 104- no; Lindsay. Progression, p. 62; Duncker, Orig. Germ. pp. 36-39; Kefer- stein, Kelt. Alt. vol. ii. p. 348; Radlof, Neue Untersuchungen, pp. 430-435.
The Celts
179
retained their Celtic speech,^ and the ethnical peculiarities of their Celtic blood. ^ Here, curiously enough, we again encounter this root mag, which is found so abundantly in the district from which they emigrated. In the Galatian district we find the names of Magydus, A/agabula, Magaba, Mygdale, Magnesia (twice), and the Mygdones. In Thessaly, where these Celts settled for a time, we also find two of these names. Magnesia, and the district of Mygdonia, which lay on the banks of the Axius, a Celtic river-name.^ Magaba is on the Halys, which is a Celtic word, meaning salt river. In Lycia, according to Strabo, there was an enormous rocky summit, steeply scarped on every side, called Kpdyos,^
The accumulative evidence furnished by these Celtic names has been exhibited in a very imperfect manner, but enough has probably been adduced to lead irresistibly to the conclusion that large portions of Italy, Spain, France, Switzerland, and Germany, were at some period inhabited by the race which now retains its speech and its nationality only in a few of the western comers of Europe — Ireland, the Scottish Highlands, the Isle of Man, Wales, and Brittany.
The following may be offered as a brief summary of the results disclosed by the evidence of these Celtic names.
There is no ground for any probable conjectures as to the
^ Galatas . . . propriam linguam eandem pene habere quam Treviros. Jerome, Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians^ Prooemium.
^ We see, from many indications in St. Paul’s Epistle, that the “ foolish Galatians,” who were so easily “ bewitched,” were like the rest of the Gaelic race — fickle, enthusiastic, fond of glory and display, and at the same time lively, witty, eloquent, and full of good sense and good feeling. The Galatians, like all other Celtic peoples, made admirable soldiers, and over- threw the invincible phalanx of Macedonia. We recognise in them the same military qualities which have made the charge of the Highland clans and of the Irish regiments so terrible, and which have rendered so famous the brilliant Celtic mercenaries of France and Carthage.
^ These Thessalian names, occurring as they do in Homer and Hero- dotus, must be attributed to the earlier Celtic occupancy of this region.
Diefenbach, Celtica, i. p. 104. There are many other Celtic names in Galatia and the neighbouring parts of Bithynia and Magnesia ; such as the Rivers ^Esius, .Esyros, and ^Eson, which apparently contain the root es, water. See p. 158, supra. Abr-os-tola seems to contain the root aher as well. See p. 187, infra. Vindia, Cinna, and Brianiae call to mind the roots gwent, cenn, and bryn. See pp. 177, 170, 172, supra. Armorium reminds us of Armorica. Olenus, in Galatia, reminds us of Olenseum in Britain, and Olin in Gaul. Agannia reminds us of Agennum in Gaul. An Episcopus Taviensis came from Galatia to attend the Nicene Council. We have also the apparently Celtic names Acitorizacum, Ambrenna, Eccobriga, Landrosia, Roslogiacum, and the River Siberis. Diefenbach, Celtica, ii. pt. i. pp. 256, 313, etc.; Thierry, Histoire des Gaulois, vol. i. pp. 145, seq.; De Belloguet, Ethnogenie, vol. i. p. 249.
i8o Words and Places
time and place at which the division of the Celts into their two great branches may be supposed to have taken place.
In Central Europe we find traces of both Cymry and Gael.
The most numerous people of primaeval Germany were of the Gadhelic branch. They were not only the most numerous, but they were also the earliest to arrive. This is indicated by the fact that throughout Germany we find no Cymric, Sclavonic, or Teutonic names which have undergone phonetic changes in accordance with the genius of the Erse or Gaelic languages. Hence it may be inferred that the Gaels, on their arrival, found Germany unoccupied, and that their immigration was there- fore of a peaceful character.
Next came the Cymry. They came as conquerors, and in numbers they were fewer than the Gaels whom they found in possession. This we gather from the fact that there are comparatively few pure Cymric names in Germany, but a large number of Gadhelic names which have been Cymricised. From the topographical distribution of these names we infer that the Gaels arrived from the east, and the C5miry from the south.^
The large number of Cymric names in Northern Italy,^ and the fact that several of the passes of the Alps ^ bear Cymric names, seem also to indicate the quarter whence the Cymric invasion proceeded.
Lastly came the Germans from the north — ^they were con- querors, and fewer in number than either the Cymry or the
^ See Meyer, in Bunsen’s Phil, of Univ. Hist. vol. i. p. 148; and Mone, Celtische Forschungefi. In the lists given by Keferstein (vol. ii. pp. i-ioi) there are about 2400 German words which bear more or less resemblance to their Celtic synonyms. The resemblance, in many cases, is only what is due to the common Aryan source; but, from other instances, we may fairly infer the existence, for a time, of a Celtic remnant among the Teutonic conquerors. On Celtic names in Germany see Leo, Vorlesungen, vol. i. p. 194, seq.; Mahn, Namen Berlin und Koln, p. 7; Keferstein, Kelt. Alt. vol. ii. ; Mone, Celtische Forschungen, passim; Muller, Marken d. Vaterl. pp. 117-128; Duncker, Origines Germ. pp. 44-70.
^ We find the roots llan, gwent, afon, is, stour, dwr, tre, ter. See pp. 175, 177, etc.; Williams, in vol. xiii. of Trans, of Royal Society of Edin. passim; Latham, note to Prichard’s Eastern Origin, pp. 121-133. A large number of words are common to the Celtic and Latin languages — lists will be found in Keferstein, Kelt. Alterth. vol. ii. pp. 102- 172; Newman, Regal Rome, pp. 17-25; Donaldson, English Ethnography, p. 37; and see Diez, Etym. Worterbuch, passim. Compare, for instance, the words sagitta and saighead, lorica and luireach, telum and tailm.
^ Celtic names are very numerous in the Alps. See Meyer, Ortsnamen ; Schott, Deut. Pied. Col. pp. 216, 225; Keferstein, Kelt. Alt. vol. ii. p. 375; Latham, in Prichard’s Eastern Origin, p. 84, seq. ; Zeuss, Deutschen, pp. 228-238.
The Celts i8i
Gael. They have Germanised many Gadhelic names which had previously been Cymricised.^
The names of Northern and Central France are still more decisively Celtic than those of Germany In Brittany the Armorican, a language closely allied to the Welsh^ is still spoken, and the local names, with few exceptions, are derived from Cymric roots, and are in a much purer and more easily recognis- able form than in other parts. But we find that the same names which occur in Brittany are also scattered over the rest of France, though more sparingly, and in. more corrupted forms. Brandes ^ has compiled a list of more than three hundred Breton names, which also occur in other parts of France.^ In the north- east of France we find a few Gaelic and Erse ® roots, which are altogether absent from the local nomenclature of the west, a fact which suggests that the Gaels of Germany may have crossed this part of France on their way to the British Isles.
But in South-western France — the region between the Garonne and the Pyrenees — the Celtic names, which are so universally diffused over the other portions of the kingdom, are most conspicuously absent. The names which we find in this district are not even Indo-European,® but belong to quite
^ See Mone, Celtische Forschungen, p. 172.
^ Though the Celtic tongue was spoken in France down to the sixth century, very few Celtic words have found their place in the French language. A good many, however, linger in the provincial dialects. A list will be found in Courson, Histoire des Peuples Bretons , vol. i. pp. 31-41. But without the evidence of local names we should have no conception of the real amount of the Celtic element in France. See Milman, Hist. Lat. Christianity^ vol. vi. p. 340; Diez, Gram. Rom. Spr. vol. i. p. 80; Adelung, Mithridates, vol. ii. p. 35. On Celtic names in France, see Diefenbach, Celtica ; Gliick, Keltischen Namen ; De Belloguet, Ethfwgenie Gaulois ; Kennedy, in Philolog. Trans, for 1855, p. 166; and two silly fooks — ^Astruc, Hist. Nat. de Languedoc, pp. 422-457, and Court de Gebelin, Monde Primitif, vol. v. pp. xx-xxv.
^ Das Ethnogr aphis che Verhdltniss der Kelten und Germanen, pp. 257- 261. Courson, Histoire des Peuples Bretons, vol. i. pp. 42-45, gives a similar list. Cf. Souvestre, Les Derniers Britons, vol. ii. p. 164, on the two races inhabiting respectively the mountains and the plains.
*Thus we have avon four times, hryn nine times, tre thirty times, as well as llan, is, ar, dwr, garw, etc. The theory has been advanced that the Bretons of Brittany were a colony from Cornwall or Devon. No doubt there was a great amount of intercourse. The Cornwall and Devon of France afforded refuge to the emigrants expelled by the Saxons from the Cornwall and Devon of England; but the local names of France prove conclusively that the Bretons were once more widely spread. See Palgrave, Eng. Com. vol. i. p. 382; Turner, Anglo-Saxons, vol. ii.
p. 213.
® The Glossa Malperga, recently disinterred by Leo, contains the laws of a Belgian tribe, written in a language nearly akin to Irish.
® Pott, art. Indo-Germ. Sprach-Stamm, in Ersch und Gruber, p. 250; Arndt, Eur op. Spr. pp. 19-23; Brace, Races of Old World, p. 252.
1 82 Words and Places
another family of human speech — the Turanian, which includes the languages which are now spoken by the Turks, the Magyars, the Finns and Lapps of Northern Europe, and their distant congeners, the Basques, who inhabit the western portion of the Pyrenees. These Spanish mountaineers, who now number three-quarters of a million, seem to be the sole unabsorbed remnant of the powerful nation which once occupied the greater portion of Spain, the half of France, the whole of Sardinia and Corsica, and large portions of Italy. Whether these Iberians, or Euskarians as they are called, were the earliest inhabitants of Spain, or whether they were preceded by Celtic tribes, is still a disputed question among ethnologists. It is doubtful whether they crossed into Spain by the Straits of Gibraltar, or whether they crept along the coast of the Mediterranean from Liguria, and penetrated by the north-eastern defiles of the Pyrenees.^ The whole subject of the ancient ethnology of Spain has been discussed in an admirable and exhaustive manner by Baron Wilhelm von Humboldt, in his work entitled Prii- fung der Untersuchungen itber die alter Bewohner Hispaniens? The materials of this investigation consist chiefly of the ancient names which are found in Pliny, Ptolemy, Strabo, and the Itineraries. These names he endeavours to trace to Celtic or Euskarian roots, and compares them with the Basque names now found in the Asturias. One of the most prevalent words is asta^ a rock, which we have in Asturia, Astorga, Asta, Aste- guieta, Astigarraga, Astobiza, Astulez, and many other names. The root ura^ water, occurs in Asturia,^ Iluria, Uria, Verurium, Urbiaca, and Urbina, liurria, a fountain, is found in the names Iturissa, Turas, Turiaso, Turdetani, and Turiga. The character- istic Euskarian terminations are uris, pa, etani, etania,^ gis, ilia, and ula. The characteristic initial syllables are al, ar, as, bae.
The absence of Iberic names from Eastern Europe and Asia seems to make it probable that the Iberians crossed from Africa, and spread over Spain, and thence to France, the Italian coast land, and the Mediterranean Islands. The Celts seem to have been the conquering, and the Iberians the conquered people. Pott, Indo-Germ. Spr. p. 25. See, however, Niebuhr, Hist. Rome, vol. ii. p. 520. There appear to be a few Euskarian names in Thrace. Humboldt, Prufung,p'p. 118-120.
* On Iberic names see also Zeuss, Die Deutschen und die Nachbarsidmme, pp. 160-164; Prichard, Researches into the Physical History of Mankind, vol. hi. p. 20-48; Diefenbach, Celtica, ii. pp^ 1-52; Robertson, Scotland under her Early Kings, vol. ii. p. 221; Adelung, Mithridates, vol. ii. pp. 12-30. The work by S. F. W. Hoffmann, Die Iberer im Westen und Osten, I have not been able to procure.
® On the name Astmria see Humboldt, PriXfung, pp. 23, 30; Diefenbach, Celtica, ii. part i. p. 312, and i. p. 27.
* See p. 56, supra.
The Celts
183
bi, bar, ber, cal, ner, sal, si, iai, and tu. These roots are found chiefly in Eastern and Northern Spain^ in the valley of the Tagus, and on the southern coast, while in Galicia, in the valleys of the Minho ^ and the Guadiana, and in Southern Portugal, the names are purely Celtic,^ and there seems to have been no infusion of an Euskarian element. Various fortresses in the Iberic district bear Celtic names, while in the mountainous district of Central Spain a fusion of the two races would seem to have taken place, probably by a Celtic conquest of Iberic territory, and the Celti- berians, as they are called, separated the pure Celts from the pure Iberians.
In Aquitania proper ^ there is hardly a single Celtic name — all are Iberic or Romance. In Italy Iberic names are not un- common,^ and it has been thought that some faint traces of a Turanian, if not of an Iberic population, are perceptible in the names of North-western Africa, of Sicily, and even of the extreme west of Ireland.^
In the British Isles, the Gaelic, the Erse, the Manx, and the Welsh, are still living languages. Just as in Silesia and Bohemia the Sclavonic is now gradually receding before the German language, so in the British Isles a similar process has been going on for more than fourteen centuries. We have documentary evidence of this process. The ancient documents relating to the parishes north of the Forth exhibit a gradually increasing proportion of Teutonic names. In the Taxatio of the twelfth century, only 2\ per cent, are Teutonic; in the Chartularies, from the twelfth to the fourteenth century, the proportion rises to 4 per cent., and in the tax rolls of 1554 to nearly 25 per cent.® In the south of the island a similar retrocession of the Celtic speech may be traced. Thus in the will of Alfred, Dorset,
^ The Mynnow or Mynwy, on which Monmouth stands, is the same name.
* Dr. I.atham has noticed the significant fact that the Celtic roots mag and dun, which occur so abundantly in other districts peopled by the Celts, are not found in Spain. This may indicate that the Spanish Celts were separated from their kinsfolk at an early period.
® On Euskarian names in France see Humboldt, Prufung, pp. 91-95.
* We find Uria in Apulia, Astiura near Antium, Asta in Liguria, as well as Liguria, Basta, Biturgia, and others which are compounded with the Euskarian roots, asia, a rock, ura, water, and ilia or ulia, a city. Hum- boldt, Prufung, pp. 1 1 1- 1 18.
* Professor Keyser, of Christiania, has endeavoured to prove a wide extension of Iberic tribes over the extreme western shores of Europe. See Prichard, Report on Ethnology to Brit. Assoc, in 1847, p. 246; Meyer, ib.\ Wilson, Prehist. Annals, p. ii; Robertson, Early Kings, vol. i. p. 33.
* Chalmers, Caledonia, vol. i. pp. 484, 485.
Words and Places
1 84
Somerset, Wilts, and Devon, are enumerated as “ Wealhcynne,” a phrase which proves that these counties were then thoroughly Celtic in blood and language, although politically they belonged to the Anglo-Saxon commonwealth.^ Dr. Guest has shown that the valleys of the Frome and the Bristol Avon formed an intrusive Welsh wedge, protruding into the Saxon district.^ Athelstan found Britons and Saxons in joint occupation of the city of Exeter. He expelled the former, and drove them beyond the Tamar, and fixed the Wye as the boundary of the Northern Cymry. Harold, son of Godwin, ordered that every Celt found east of Offa’s Dyke should have his right hand struck off But even so late as the time of Henry II. Herefordshire was not entirely Anglicised, and it was only in the reign of Henry VIII. that Monmouthshire was first numbered among the English counties. In remote parts of Devon the ancient Cymric speech feebly lingered on till the reign of Elizabeth, while in Cornwall it was the general medium of intercourse in the time of Henry VIII. In the time of Queen Anne it was confined to five or six villages in the western portion of the county, and it has only become extinct within the lifetime of living men (a.d. 1777),^ while the Celtic race has survived the extinction of their language with little intermixture of Teutonic blood. In the west of Glamorgan, in Flint, Denbigh, and part of Montgomery, the English language has almost entirely displaced the Welsh, and in the other border counties it is rapidly encroaching. In fact, we may now see in actual operation the same gradual process which has taken place throughout the rest of Britain. In Wales, the change of language, now in progress, is accompanied by very little infusion of Saxon blood. The same must also have been the case at an earlier period. In Mercia and Wessex, at all events, we must believe that the bulk of the people is of Celtic blood. The Saxon keels cannot have transported any very numerous population, and, no doubt, the ceorls, or churls, long continued to be the nearly pure-blooded descendants of the aboriginal Celts of Britain.^
These theoretical conclusions are thoroughly borne out by the evidence of the local names. Throughout the whole island
^ Palgrave, English Commonwealth^ vol. i. p. 410.
^ Archceolog, Journal^ vol. xvi.
® Lappenberg, Anglo-Saxon Kings ^ vol. i. p. 231.
^Gough’s Camden, vol. i. p. 15; Halliwell, Cornwall, pp. 167-174. Many Cornish words still survive, as quilquin, a frog.
® Palgrave, English Common, vol. i, p. 26; Davies, in Philolog. Trans. for 1857, p. 75; Diefenbach, Celtica, ii. part ii. p. 140.
The Celts
185
almost every river-name is Celtic, most of the shire-names contain Celtic roots and a fair sprinkling of names of hills, valleys, and fortresses, bears witness that the Celt was the aboriginal possessor of the soil ; while in the border counties of Salop, Hereford, Gloucester, Dorset, Somerset, and Devon, and in the mountain fastnesses of Derbyshire and Cumberland, not only are the names of the great natural features of the country derived from the Celtic speech, but we find occasional village- names, with the prefixes Ian and tre, interspersed among the Saxon patronymics. A large number of the chief ancient centres of population, such as London, Winchester, Gloucester, Exeter, Lincoln, York, Manchester, Lancaster, and Carlisle, bear Celtic names, while the Teutonic town-names usually indicate by their suffixes that they originated in isolated family settlements in the uncleared forest,^ or arose from the necessities of traffic in the neighbourhood of some frequented ford.^ These facts, taken together, prove that the Saxon immigrants, for the most part, left the Celts in possession of the towns, and subdued, each for himself, a portion of the unappropriated waste. It is obvious, therefore, that a very considerable Celtic element of population must, for a long time, have subsisted, side by side with the Teutonic invaders, without much mutual interference. In time the Celts acquired the language of the more energetic race, and the two peoples at last ceased to be distinguishable. Just in the same way, during the last two centuries, Anglo-Saxon colonists have been establishing themselves among the aborigines of North America, of the Cape, and of New Zealand, and the natives have not been at once exterminated, but are being slowly absorbed and assimilated by the superior vigour of the incoming race.
To exhibit the comparative amount of the Celtic, the Saxon, and the Danish elements of population in various portions of the island, an analysis has been made of the names of villages, hamlets, hills, woods, valleys, etc.,^ in the counties of Suffolk, Surrey, Devon, Cornwall, and Monmouth.
^ Cambridge, Cornwall, Cumberland, Devon, Dorset, Durham, Gloucester, Hertford, Huntingdon, Kent, Lancaster, Lincoln, Monmouth, Northumber- land, Oxford, Worcester, and York, together with all the Welsh and Scotch shires, except Anglesea, Montgomery, Haddington, Kirkcudbright, Stirling, Sutherland, and Wigton.
^ E.g. Buckingham, Reading, Derby, etc.
E.g. Stafford, Bedford, Chelmsford, etc.
* River-names are excluded from the computation.
i86
Words and Places
|
Per centage of Names from the |
Suffolk. |
Surrey. |
Devon. |
Corn- wall. |
Mon- mouth. |
Isle of Man. |
Ire- land. |
|
Celtic . |
2 |
8 |
32 |
80 |
76 |
59 |
80 |
|
Anglo-Saxon . |
90 |
91 |
65 |
20 |
24 |
20 |
19 |
|
Norse |
8 |
I |
3 |
0 |
0 |
21 |
I |
By far the greater number of Celtic names in England are of the Cymric type. Yet, as we have already seen/ there is a thin stream of Gadhelic names which extends across the island from the Thames to the Mersey, as if to indicate the route by which the Gaels passed across to Ireland, impelled, probably, by the succeeding hosts of Cymric invaders.
The Cymry held the lowlands of Scotland as far as the Perth- shire hills The names in the valleys of the Clyde and the Forth are Cymric, not Gaelic. At a later period the Scots,^ an Irish sept, crossed over into Argyle, and gradually extended their dominion over the whole of the north-west of Scotland, encroach- ing here and ther,e on the Cymry who held the lowlands, and who were probably the people who go by the name of Piets. In the ninth century the monarchy of the Piets was absorbed by the Scots. The Piets, however, still maintained a distinct ethnical existence, for we find them fighting in the battle of the Standard against Stephen. In the next century they disappear mysteriously from history.^
To establish the point, that the Piets, or the nation, whatever was its name, that held Central Scotland, was Cymric, not Gaelic, we may refer to the distinction already mentioned ^ between hen and pen. Ben is confined to the west and north ; pen to the east and south. Inver and aher are also useful test- words in discriminating between the two branches of the Celts.
^ E.g. 'Dyinmow^ Ouse, etc. See pp. 158, 178, supra.
2 On the limits of the Cymry and Gael in Scotland, see Garnett, On the Relation of the Piets and Gael, in Philolog. Proceed, vol. i., and Essays, pp. 196-204; Chalmers, Caledonia, vol. i. ; Robertson, Scotland under her Early Kings, vol. ii. pp. 360-381; Skene, Hist, of the Highlanders^, vol. i. pp. 67-87; Donaldson, English Ethnography, pp. 36, 37; Diefenbach, Celtica, ii. pt. ii. pp. 176, seq.
^ In ancient records Scotia means Ireland. North Britain was called Nova Scotia. In the twelfth century the Clyde and Forth were the southern boundary of what was then called Scotland. Palgrave, English Commonwealth, vol. i. p. 420; vol. iv. p. 308.
^ Palgrave, English Commonwealth, vol. i. p. 418.
® See p. 169, supra.
The Celts
187
The difference between the two words is dialectic only; the etymology and the meaning are the same — a confluence of waters, either of two rivers, or of a river with the sea. Aber occurs repeatedly in Brittany,^ and is found in about fifty Welsh names, such as Aberdare, Abergavenny, Abergele, Aberystwith, and Barmouth, a corruption of Abermaw. In England we find Aberlord in Yorkshire, and Berwick in Northumberland and Sussex; and it has been thought that the name of the Humber is a corruption of the same root. Inver, the Erse and Gaelic form, is common in Ireland, where aber is unknown. Thus we find places called Inver, in Antrim, Donegal, and Mayo, and Invermore, in Galway and in Mayo. In Scotland, the invers and abers are distributed in a curious and instructive manner. If we draw a line across the map from a point a little south of Inverary, to one a little north of Aberdeen, we shall find that (with very few exceptions) the invers lie to the north-west of the lihe,^ and the abers to the south-east of it.^ This line nearly coincides with the present southern limit of the Gaelic tongue, and probably also with the ancient division between the Piets and the Scots. Hence, we may conclude that the Piets, a people belonging to the Cymric* branch of the Celtic stock, and whose language has now ceased to be anywhere vernacular, occupied the central and eastern districts of Scotland, as far north as the Grampians ; while the Gadhelic Scots have retained their language, and have given their name to the whole country. The local names prove, moreover, that in Scotland the Cymry did not encroach on the Gael, but the Gael on the Cymry. The intrusive names are invers, which invaded the land of the abers. Thus on the shore of the Firth of Forth we find a few invers among the abers^ The process of the change is shown by an old charter, in which King David grants the monks of May, “ Inverin qui fuit Aberin.’’ So Abernethy became Invemethy, although the old name is now restored.^ The Welsh word
^ E.g. Abervrack, Avranches, etc.
2 Inverary, Inverness, Inveraven, Inverury, Inveroran, Inverlochy, Invercannich, Inverfankaig, Invercaslie, Inverallen, Inverkeithnie, Inver- amsay, Inverbroom, Invereshie, Invergarry, Invernahavon.
® Arbroath or Aberbrothwick, Abercorn, Aberdeen, Aberdour, Aber- nethy, Abertay, Aberledy, Abergeldie, Abern^^te, Aberfeldie, Aberfoyle.
*E.g. Inveresk, near Edinburgh, Inverkeithing in Fife, Inverbervie in Kincardine.
® See Kemble, Saxons in England^ vol. ii. pp. 4, 5 ; Chalmers, Caledonia^ vol. i. p. 480; Latham, Ethnology of Brit. Is. pp, 80, 81. Skene, History of the Highlanders, vol. i. p. 74, and Diefenbach, Celtica, i. p. 23, think that too much ethnological importance has been attributed to the distinction between inver and aher.
i88
Words and Places
uchel, high, may also be adduced to prove the Cymric affinities of the Piets. This word does not exist in either the Erse or the Gaelic languages, and yet it appears in the name of the Ochil Hills, in Perthshire. In Ayrshire, and again in Linlithgow, we find places called Ochil-tree; and there is an Uchel-tre in Galloway. The suffix in this case is undoubtedly the character- istic Cymric word tre^ a dwelling.^ Again, the Erse bally, ^ a town, occurs in 2000 names in Ireland; and, on the other hand, is entirely absent from Wales and Brittany. In Scotland this most characteristic test-word is found frequently in the inver district, while it never appears among the abers. The evidence of these names makes it impossible to deny that the Celts of the Scottish lowlands must have belonged to the Cymric branch of the Celtic stock.
The ethnology of the Isle of Man may be very completely illustrated by means of local names. The map of the island contains about 400 names, of which about 20 per cent, are English, 21 per cent, are Norwegian, and 59 per cent, are Celtic. These Celtic names are all of the most characteristic Erse type. It would appear that not a single colonist from Wales ever reached the island, which, from the mountains of Carnarvon, is seen like a faint blue cloud upon the water. There are ninety- six names beginning with Balia, and the names of more than a dozen of the highest mountains have the prefix Slieu, answering to the Irish Slievh or Sliabh, The Isle of Man has the Curragh, the Loughs, and the Allens of Ireland faithfully reproduced. It is curious to observe that the names which denote places of Christian worship ^ are all Norwegian ; they are an indication of the late date at which Heathenism must have prevailed.^
^ See p. 174, supra.
2 The root of bally is found in the words wall, vallum, bailey, etc.
* In the Channel Islands the names of all the towns and villages are derived from the names of saints, indicating that before the introduction of Christianity these islands were inhabited only by a sparse population of fishermen and shepherds. Cf. Latham, Channel Is. p. 31 1.
*An account of the heathen superstitions and legends, which still linger in the island, will be found in Train, Isle of Man, vol. ii. pp. 114-184.
CHAPTER X
THE HISTORIC VALUE OF LOCAL NAMES
Contrast between Roman and Saxon civilisation, as shown by Local Names — Roman roads — “ Gates ” — Bridges and fords — Celtic bridges — Deficiency of inns — Cold Harbour — Saxon dykes — Roman walls — Saxon forts — “ Bury — Ancient camps — Chester, caster, and caer — Stations of the Roman Legions — Frontier districts — Castile — ^The Mark — Pfyn, Devises — Ethnic Shire-names of England — Intrusive colonisation.
There is a striking contrast between the characteristics of Saxon and Roman names. The Saxon civilisation was domestic, the genius of Rome was imperial; the Saxons colonised, the Romans conquered. Hence, the traces of Roman rule which remain upon the map are surprisingly few in number. Throughout the whole island, we scarcely find a single place of human habi- tation denoted by a name which is purely Roman The names of our English villages, with few exceptions, are Scandinavian or Teutonic; while the appellations of the chief centres of population and of the great natural landmarks — the rivers and the mountains — are the legacy of a still earlier race.
The character of Roman names is very different. Rome, with her eagle eye, could cast a comprehensive glance over a province or an empire, and could plan and execute the vast physical enterprises necessary for its subjugation, for its material progress, or for its defence. The Romans were essentially a constructive race. We still gaze with wonder on the massive fragments of their aqueducts, their bridges, their amphitheatres, their fortresses, and their walls; we still find their altars, their inscriptions, and their coins. The whole island is intersected by a network of Roman roads, admirabty planned, and executed with a constructive skill which is able to excite the admiration even of modem engineers. These are the true monuments of Roman greatness.
The Saxons were not road-makers. Vast works undertaken with a comprehensive imperial purpose were beyond the range of Saxon civilisation. The Saxons even borrowed their name
^ Exceptions are Speen, anciently SpinaB, Pontefract, Caerleon, Por- chester, and Chester.
189
Words and Places
190
for a road from the Latin language. The Roman strata, or paved roads, became the Saxon streets. This word street often enables us to recognise the lines of Roman road which, straight as an arrow-course, connect the chief strategic positions in the island.
Thus, from the fortified port of Lymne an almost disused road runs across the Kentish Hills to Canterbury, bearing the name of Stone Street. From the fortified port of Richborough the road which is called Watling ^ Street went to Canterbury and London, and thence, by Stony Stratford (the paved Street-ford), to Chester, the “ castra ” of the northern army. Ryknield Street led from Tynemouth, through York, Derby, and Birming- ham, to St. David’s. Icknield Street led from Norwich to Dor- chester and Exeter. The Ermin ^ Street joined London and Lincoln. The Roman road by which sick men journeyed from London to bathe in the hot springs at Bath, went, in Saxon times, by the appropriate name of Akeman Street. The West- moreland mountain called High Street, derives its name from the Roman road which crosses it at a height of 2700 feet.^
Even where the Roman roads have become obliterated by the plough, we may often trace their direction by means of the names of towns, which proclaim the position they occupied on the great lines of communication. Such are the names of Ardwick le Street in Yorkshire, Chester le Street in Durham, Stretton, Stratton, Streatham, Streatley, and several places called Stretford or Stratford, all of which inform us that they were situated on some line of Roman road.^ Roman roads which do not bear the name of street are often called Portways. There are nine Portways in different parts of the kingdom.^ The Fossway ® also was a Roman road, running from Cornwall to Lincoln.
In the Scandinavian districts of the island the word gate ^ is
^ Probably from vadla, a mendicant pilgrim.
2 Probably from earm, a pauper. See Lappenberg, Anglo-Saxon Kings, vol. i. p. 51; Poste, Britannic Researches, p. 94; Horsley, Brit. Rom. p. 388.
* Ferguson, Northmen in Cumberland, p. 49.
^ Hartshorne, Salopia Antiqua, p. 238; Wright, Wanderings, p. 326.
® Hartshorne, Salopia Antiqua, p. 272.
« Foss is a Saxon synonym for a dyke. The source seems to be the Latin fossa.
’ The Danish word gata means a street or road. The Anglo-Saxon geat means a gate. The distinction is analogous to that which exists in the case of the word ford. See p. 128, supra. The one is a passage along, the other a passage through. The root is seen in the German verb gehen, and the English go. Compare the Sanskrit gati, and the Zend gdtu, which both
Historic Value of Local Names 191
commonly used to express a road or street, as in the case of Harrowgate. In York, Leeds, Lincoln, and other northern towns, the older streets usually bear the suffix. In Leeds we find Briggate or Bridge Street, and Kirkgate or Church Street. In York this suffix was borne by no less than twenty of the streets, as in the case of Micklegate, Walmgate, Jubbergate, Feasegate, Godramgate, Castlegate, Skelmergate, Petersgate, Marygate, Fishergate, and Stonegate. We find Millgate Street and St. Marysgate in Manchester, and Cowgate and Canongate in Edinburgh.
In the South the word gate usually takes the sense of the passage through a town wall, as in the case of Newgate, Bishops- gate, and the other gates of London. In the name of Highgate, however, we have the sense of a road.
The passes through lines of hill or cliff are frequently denoted by this root. Thus Reigate is a contraction of Ridgegate, the passage through the ridge of the North Downs. Gatton, in the same neighbourhood, is the town at the passage. Caterham and Godstone may possibly be referred to the same root, as well as Gatcombe in the Isle of Wight. Ramsgate, Margate, Westgate, Kingsgate, and Sandgate, are the passages to the shore through the line of Kentish cliffs. In Romney Marsh gut takes the place of gate, as in the case of Jervis Gut, Clobesden Gut, and Denge Marsh Gut.
The difficulties of travelling must formerly have interposed great obstacles in the way of commercial intercourse. Local names afford various intimations that the art of bridge-build- ing, in which the Romans had excelled,^ was not retained by the Anglo-Saxons. Thus the station on the Tyne, which in Roman times had been called Pons iElii,^ received from the
mean a road. From the same primary meaning of a passage, we obtain gut, the intestinal passage, and the nautical t^rm gat, a passage through a narrow channel, as the Cattegat. A gate is the passage into a field. A man’s gait is the way he goes; his gaiters are his goers. Otherga^^s is the Sussex provincialism for otherways. See Warton, Seaboard and the Down, vol. ii. p. 28. The ghats, or ghauts, of India are the passages to the river- side, and the passes through the western line of hills. See Pictet, Orig. Indo-Europ. pt. ii. p. 292; Worsaae, Danes and Norwegians, p. 40; Ferguson, Northmen, p. 49; Leo, Anglo-Saxon Names, p. 63; Diefenbach, Vergleich. Worterbuch, vol. ii. p. 394; Philolog. Proc. vol. i. p. 40; and several letters in the Guardian, December 1861.
^ The importance attached by the Romans to the art of bridge-building is indicated by the fact that the chief ecclesiastical functionary bore the name of the bridge-builder — Pontifex. See Donaldson, Varronianus, p. 270.
^ The piles on which the Roman bridge rested were discovered in 1771- Bruce, Roman Wall p. 130. There seems to have been another bridge
Words and Places
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Angiians the name Gateshead^ or^ as we may translate it, “ road’s end; ” an indication, it would seem, of the destruction of the bridge. At the spot where the Roman road crosses the Aire, the name of Pontefract (Ad Pontem Fractum) reminds us that the broken Roman bridge must have remained un- repaired during a period long enough for the naturalisation of the new name, and the name of Stratford le Bow contains internal evidence that the dangerous narrow Saxon ford over the Lea was not replaced by a ‘‘ bow,” or “ arched bridge,” till after the time of the Norman conquest.^
But nothing shows more conclusively the unbridged state of the streams than the fact that where the great lines of Roman road are intersected by rivers, we so frequently find important towns bearing the Saxon suffix ford?' At Oxford, Hereford, Hertford, Bedford, Stratford on Avon, Stafford, Wallingford, Guilford, and Chelmsford, considerable streams had to be forded. In the kingdom of Essex, within twenty miles of London, we find the names Ilford, Romford, Stapleford, Passing- ford, Stanford, Woodford, Chingford, Stortford, Old Ford, and Stratford. We find the same state of things in Kent. The Medway had to be forded at Aylesford, the Darent at Hartford and at Otford, and the Stour at Ashford.
The great deficiency of bridges is still more forcibly impressed upon us when we remember that while the names of so many large towns present the suffix ford, there are only a very few which terminate in bridge. We have Tunbridge, Weybridge, Uxbridge, Stockbridge, Cambridge,^ and a few more, all of which stand on small and easily-bridged streams. But in all these cases the English form of suffix seems to show the com- paratively modern date of the erection, and names which take a Saxon form, such as Brixton, or Bristol, anciently Bricgstow, are extremely rare.
built by iElius on the continuation of the Roman road northward. Six miles from Newcastle we find the village-name of Ponteland, apparently from Ad Pontem ^Elianum. Baxter, Gloss, p. 196. There was a Roman bridge at Paunton, Ad Pontem. Baxter, Glossariumy p. 7.
1 The bridge was built by Matilda, Queen of Henry I.
^ Hartshorne, Salopia Antiqua, pp. 262-265.
® Cambon^um, the ancient name of Cambridge, gives us the Celtic root rhyd, a ford, which we find also in Rhedecmdi, the &itish name of Oxford, and in Hert-ioxd. (Rhyd-ford), where, probably, we have two synonymous elements. The Celtic rhod, a roadstead, and rhyd^ or red^ a ford, bear much the same relation to each other as the Norse fjord and the Saxon ford. See p. 128, supra; Gluck, Keltischen Namen, p. 25; Adelung, Mithridates, vol. iii. p. 68; Diefenbach, Celtica, i. p. 58.
Historic Value of Local Names 193
It should be noticed that pont, the Welsh word for a bridge, is derived from the Latin, probably through the monks, who were the great bridge-builders. Nevertheless it has been thought that the art of bridge-building was known at a very early period to the Celtic nations, and was subsequently lost. In the most purely Celtic parts of Spain and France, a very large number of the names of riverain cities terminate in hriga and briva, which, in the opinion of many Celtic scholars, must have meant a bridge.^ They think it is an ancient Aryan word, older than the epoch of the separation of the Teutonic and Celtic stems, and which disappeared from the Celtic speech at the time when the art of bridge-building was lost.^
The hardships incident to travelling must have been much increased by the fewness of houses of entertainment along the roads. Where no religious house existed to receive the way- farer, he would usually be compelled to content himself with the shelter of bare walls. The ruins of deserted Roman villas vrere no doubt often used by travellers who carried their own bedding and provisions, as is done by the frequenters of the khans and dak houses of the East. Such places seem commonly to have borne the name of Cold Harbour.® In the neighbourhood of ancient lines of road we find no less than seventy places bearing
^ Thus the ancient name of Brivisara has been replaced by the modern equivalent, Pontoise.
* In Spain we have Turobriga, Mirobriga, Mertobriga, Segobriga, Laco- briga, Arcobriga, Juliobriga, and others, thirty-five in all. In Celtic Gaul there are Eburobriga, Limnobriga, Amagenbriga, and Brigiosum; and Brivate and Durocobrivis in Britain. An allied form is hria^ which we find in Mesembria, Selymbria, and Poltyobria, in the Celtic colonies on the Euxine. Brescia was in the Celtic part of Italy. The names of Bregentz, Braganza, Briangon, and perhaps of the Brigantes, contain the same root. For lists of these names see Diefenbach, Celtica^ ii. pt. i. p. 317; Prichard, Researches, vol. iii. pp. 30, 120. The word brigand may not improbably be derived from the name of the Brigantes, who served as mediaeval mercenaries. See Dufresne, vol. i. pp. 775-778; Diefenbach, Orig. Eur. p. 271; Celtica, i. p. 17; Diez, Etym. Worterb. sub voc. ; Rawlinson, Herodotus, vol. iii. p. 220; Prichard, Eastern Origin of Celtic Nat. p. 120; Humboldt, Priifung, pp. 82-86, 144; Salverte, Essai sur les Noms, vol. ii. p. 258; Radlof, Neue Untersuchungen, pp. 304, 305; Zeuss, Grammatica Celtica, vol. i. p. loi; vol. ii. pp. 758, 772; Hume, Geogr. Terms, p. 10; Cambro- Briton, vol. iii. p. 285; De Belloguet, Ethnogenie, vol. i. pp. 214-217; Baxter, Gloss, p. 50. Gliick, as usual, laments the sad ignorance displayed by all preceding writers, except him- self and Zeuss, and asserts that the root is the same as that of the German berg, the Irish brig, and the Cymric bre, a hill. Kelt. Namen, pp. 126, 130. On the whole I am inclined to believe that the words briga and briva are unconnected, briga meaning a hill, and briva a bridge.
Compare the German Herberg, shelter, and the French auberge. See Notes and Queries, second series, vol. vi. pp. 143, 317.
Words and Places
194
this name/ and about a dozen more bearing the analogous name of Caldicot, or “ cold cot.” ^
The only great works constructed by the Anglo-Saxons were the vast earthen ramparts which served as the boundaries between hostile kingdoms. For miles and miles the dyke and ditch ^ of the Wansdyke — the ancient boundary of Wessex — still stretches across the bleak downs of Somerset and Wilts. Beginning near Portishead, on the Bristol Channel^ it runs by Mfidmesbury and Cirencester, to Bampton in Oxfordshire; it then crosses the Thames, and re-appears at a place called Kinsey. This name is a corruption of King’s Way, and shows that the dyke must have been used as a road as well as for purposes of defence.^ Offa’s Dyke, which stretched from Chester to the Wye, guarded the frontiers of Mercia against the Welsh.® Grim’s Dyke near Salisbury, Old Ditch near Amesbury, and Bokerly Ditch, mark the position of the Welsh and Saxon frontier at an earlier period.® The ditch called the Piets’ Work, reaching from Galashiels to Peel Fell, seems to have been at one time the northern boundary of the kingdom of Northumbria. A vast work, variously called the Recken Dyke, the Devil’s Dyke, St. Edmund’s Dyke, and Cnut’s Dyke, served as the defence of the kingdom of East Anglia against Mercia; unless, indeed, we suppose, as is not improbable, that it was constructed at a time when the Mercian kingdom was still British, and the East-Anglian settlement was the sole possession of the Teutons in the island.’
But these Saxon defences were at the best mere earthworks,
^ There are three on Akeman Street, four on Ermin Street, two on Icknield Street, two on Watling Street, two on the Portways, and one on the Fossway. Hartshorne, Salopia Antiqua^ pp. 253-258.
2 Hartshorne, Salopia Antiqua, p. 249.
® The Anglo-Saxon die is derived from the root which supplies us with the verb to dig, and is used to mean both the mound and the excavation. In modern English we call one the dyke and the other the ditch. Probably the masculine and feminine of the Anglo-Saxon die supplied the original germ of the distinctive use. Kemble, Cod. Dip. vol. iii. p. xxii; Leo, Anglo-Saxon Names ^ p. 78. The common village-name of Ditton (dyke- ton) may sometimes guide us as to the position of these dykes. Fen Ditton and Wood Ditton in Cambridgeshire stand respectively on the Fleam Dyke and the Devil’s Dyke.
* Leo, Anglo-Saxon Names ^ p. xiv.
® Lappenberg, Anglo-Saxon Kings ^ vol. i. p. 231; Hartshorne, Salopia Aniiqua, pp. 181-193.
® Guest, in Proceedings of Archceol. Instil, for 1849, p. 28.
’ Lappenberg, Anglo-Saxon Kings, vol. i. p. 242. The Mercian king- dom was founded 140 years after that of Kent, and the East-Anglian settlement was, no doubt, much earlier than that in Kent. Thrupp, Anglo- Saxon Home, p. 7.
Historic Value of Local Names 195
and are not to be compared, in a constructive point of view, with the two Roman walls which stretched across the island from sea to sea. The Wall of Hadrian, or of Severus, as it is called, ran from Newcastle to Carlisle, and is still in wonderful preservation. But even if the massive masonry and huge earthen rampart of this wall had perished, it would be easy to trace its direction by means of the continuous series of memorial names which are furnished by the villages and farm-houses along its course. It began at Wallsend, now famous as the place where the best Newcastle coals are shipped. We then come in succession to places called Benw^ZZ, TToZbottle, Heddon- on-the-lTaZZ, Welton, WaZZhouses, Wall, WaZwick Chesters, TTtzZZshiels, WaZZtown, Thirl«;aZZ, Birdoszf^aZ^Z, WaZZbours, Wal- ton, Oldwall, WaZZknoll, W allmill, and WaZZby, with W allend, Wallioot, and WaZZhead at the western end. The wall was, moreover, protected by fortified posts at regular intervals. The sites of these fortresses go by the names of Blake (Black) Chesters, Rutchester, Halton Chesters, Carrowburgh, Chester- holm. Great Chesters, Burgh, and Drumburgh.^
The northern wall, or Wall of Antoninus, extended from the Forth to the Clyde, and goes by the name of Grime’s Dyke.“ Dumbarton, Dumbuck Hill, and Dunglas were probably fortified stations along its course.
Fortified camps, whether of British, Roman, Saxon, or Danish construction, are very commonly marked by the suffix bury. To enumerate any considerable portion of these names would far exceed our limits ; but merely to show how this suffix may guide the antiquarian in his researches, it may suffice to exhibit the results obtained from a single county. In Wiltshire alone there are, or were in Camden’s time, military earthworks in existence at places called Chisbury, Boadbury, Abury, Yanesbury, Ambresbury, Selbury, Sidbury, Badbury, Wanborough, Bury- wood, Barbury, Oldbury, Rybury, Westbury, Battlesbury, Avesbury, Heytesbury, Scratchbury, Waldsbury, Bilbury, Winklebury, Chiselbury, Clerebury, Whichbury, Frippsbury, and Ogbury or Okebury, At Malmesbury, Salisbury, Heytes- bury, Ramesbury, Titsbury, and Marlborough, the sites of British or Saxon earthworks seem to have been used for the erection of Norman castles.
^ Bruce, The Roman Wall^ passim.
* There is also a Grimesditch in Cheshire, and there are four other earthworks bearing the same name, slightly altered. Chalmers, Caledonia, vol. i. p. 119.
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A competent etymological investigation of the first syllable in these names might probably yield results not destitute of value.
The Roman stations throughout the island may very fre- quently be recognised by the fact that their modem names contain a modification of the Latin word castra} These modifications are very curious^ as exhibiting the dialectic tendencies in different portions of the island.^ Throughout the kingdoms of Essex^ Sussex^ Wessex, and other purely Saxon districts, the form Chester is universal. Here we have the names of Colchester, Godmanchester, Grantchester, Chester- ford, Irchester, Rochester, Winchester, Ilchester, Chichester, Silchester, Porchester, and two Dorchesters. But as we pass from the Saxon to the Anglian kingdoms, we find Chester re- placed by caster. The distinctive usage of these two forms is very noticeable, and is of great ethnological value. In one place the line of demarcation is so sharply defined that it can be traced within two hundred yards. Northamptonshire, which is decisively Danish, is divided by the Nen from Hunting- donshire, which is purely Saxon. On the Saxon side of the river we find the village of Chesterton, confronted on the other side by the town of Castor, the two names recording, in two different dialects, the fact that the bridge was guarded by the Roman station of Durobrivse.^ Throughout the Anglian and Danish districts we find this form caster, as in Tadcaster, Bran- caster, Ancaster, Doncaster, Lancaster, Casterton, Alcaster, Caster, and Caistor. As we pass from East Anglia to Mercia, which, though mainly Anglian, was subject to a certain amount of Saxon influence, we find cester, Which is intermediate in form between the Anglian caster and the Saxon Chester, The e is retained, but the h is omitted; and there is a strong tendency to further elision, as in the case of Leicester, pronounced
^ One syllable of names containing Chester ^ caster^ or caer^ is almost always Celtic, and seems to have been a Latinisation of the enchorial name. In Tt^inchester the first syllable is the Latin venta^ a word which was constructed from the Celtic gtvent, a plain, ^mchester contains a portion of the Latinised name Binovium. In Dorchester and Exeter we have the Celtic words dwr and uisge, water; in Manchester we have man, a district. See pp. 177, 156, 158, 176, supra.
^ See Robertson, Early Kings, vol. ii. p. 240; Latham, Opuscula, p. 152; Wright, Wanderings, p. 208; Hartshorne, Salopia Antigua, pp. 158, 199.
® See a paper by Latham On the Traces of a Bilingual Town in England, read before the &itish Association in 1853; Latham, Opuscula, p. 152; English Language, vol. i. p. 434; Ansted and Latham, Channel Is. p. 335; Smith, Dictionary of Geogr. s. v. Durobrivae; Gough’s Camden, vol. ii.
286. Durobrivae means water-bridge. See p. 193, supra.
Historic Value of Local Names 197
Le'ster; Bicester, pronounced Bi’ster; Worcester, pronounced Wor’ster; Gloucester, pronounced Glos’ter, and Cirencester, pronounced S’isester or Si's’ter. The same tendency is seen in the cases of Alcester, Mancester, and Towcester. It is still more noteworthy that beyond the Tees, where the Danish and Mercian influence ceases, and where almost all the local names resume the pure Saxon type,^ we find that the southern form Chester reappears; and we have the names Lanchester, Bia- chester, Chester-le-Street, Ebchester, Ribchester, Rowchester, Fichester, Chesterknows, Chesterlee, Chesterholm, Rutchester, and a few others on the Wall.
Towards the Welsh frontier the c or ch becomes an x, and the tendency to elision is very strong. We have Uttoxeter, pro- nounced UxTer; Wroxeter, and Exeter, which in Camden’s time was written Excester.
These names on the Welsh frontier exhibit a gradual ap- proximation to the form which we find in the parts where the Celtic speech survived. Here the t also disappears, and we find the prefix caer in the names of Caerleon, Caergai, Caer- gwyle, Caersws, Caerwent, Caerphilly, Caerwis, and the still more abbreviated forms of Carstairs, Carluke, and Carriden in Scotland, Carhayes in Cornwall, Carmarthen, Cardigan, Cardiff, and Carnarvon in Wales, Carhallock, Carlisle, and Carvoran " in England, Carlow and Cardross in Ireland. With these forms we may compare Caerphili and Caerven in Brittany, Cherbourg in the Celtic peninsula of Comuaille, and Carsoli, Carosio, Carmiano, Carovigno, and Cortona, in the Celtic part of Italy
^ See p. 134, supra.
^ Great Chesters, on the Wall, is an exact reproduction of the Celtic name Carvoran, from which it is only three miles distant. As in the case of Chesterton and Castor, we have here an indication of the close geographical proximity in which different races must have lived. See Wright, Essays, voL i. p. 103.
® Chester and caster are, undoubtedly, from the Latin castra. Compare the Anglo-Saxon word ceaster. Kemble, Codex Diplom. vol. iii. p. xx. But there is considerable doubt whether caer is a modification of castra, or an independent Celtic root. We have the British and Cornish caer, the Armorican her, and the Irish cathair and caHr, a fortress, and the Welsh cae, an inclosure, and cor, a close. See Owen’s Welsh Dictionary ; Die- fenbach, Celtica, i. p. 107; Davies,, in Philolog. Trans, for 1857, p. 43; Williams, Essays, pp. 79, 80; Wright, Essays, vol. i. p. 103; Mone, Celt. Forsch. p. 200; De Belloguet, Ethnog. vol. i. p. 210; Guest, in Philolog. Proceed, vol. v. p. 187; Cambro- Briton, vol. ii. p. 409. Compare the Hebrew and Phoenician word Kartha, which is seen in the names of KtVjatb, Kerioth, Kir, and Carthage, and is identical in meaning with the Celtic caer. Wilton, Negeb, p. 103. If there is no affiliation, this is a very remarkable coincidence of sound and meaning.
Words and Places
198
The Latin word colonia is found in the names of Lincoln and Cologne/ and perhaps also in those of Colchester and the two rivers called the Colne^ one of which rises near the site of the colonia of Verulamium^ and the other flows past Colchester. In the immediate vicinity of Colchester a legion was stationed for the protection of the colony. The precise spot which was occupied by the camp of this legion is indicated by the remains of extensive Roman earthworks at Lexdon, a name which is a corruption of Legionis Dunum? The Second Legion — Legio Augusta — was stationed on the River Usk, or Isca, at a place called^ in the Roman time, Isca Legionis. The process by which the modem name of Caerleon has been evolved, is in- dicated in the work which bears the name of Nennius: bellum
gestum est in urbe Leogis, quae Brittanice Cair Lion dicitur.’’ ^ Another legion v/e find at Leicester (Legionis castra).
The station of the seventh legion was in Spain, at Leon (Legio), that of the Claudian legion at Kloten in Switzerland."^ Megiddo in Palestine, where another legion was quartered, now goes by the name of Ledjun, or Lejjun.^ (Legio, or Castra Legionis.)
The numerous peels ” along the border are an evidence of the insecurity arising from border warfare in times when every man’s house was, in a literal sense, his castle also.®
The hill where the border clan of the Maxwells used to assemble previous to their dreaded forays bears the appro- priate name of the Wardlaw (guard hill). A reference to this trysting-place is contained in the war-cry of the clan, “ I bid you bide Wardlaw.”
A similar state of society is indicated by the name of Castile, as well as by the castle which appears on the armorial bearings of that kingdom. The name and the device date from the times of continuous border warfare, when the central portion of the peninsula was, mile by mile, being wrested from the Moors, and secured by an ever advancing line of frontier castles.*^
At a later period, when the unbelievers had been finally
^ See Mahn, Ueher die Namen Berlin und Koln, p. 2. Compare the name of Kulonia in Palestine. Robinson, Later Researches ^ p. 158.
* Baxter, Glossarmm, p. 64; Gough’s Camden^ vol. ii. p. 138.
® Nennius, c. 56. ^ Meyer, Ortsnamen, p. 70.
® Robinson, Biblical Researches, vol. hi. pp. 177-180; Later Researches, p. 1 18; Stanley, Jewish Church, p. 322.
® Peel is from the Celtic pill, a castle. Davies, in Philolog. Proc. vol. vi. p. 131.
’ The same fact is expressed by the Arabic name for Castile — Ardhu-U kila, the land of castles. Gayangos, Dynasties, vol. i. p. 316; Prescott, Ferdinand and Isabella, vol. i. p. 28.
Historic Value of Local Names 199
expelled from Northern and Central Spain, the debateable ground was the province which now goes by the name of Murcia. This word means the district of the ‘‘ march ’’ or margin, the dewar^ration between two alien races. To make a mark is to draw a boundary. Letters of marque are letters which contain a licence to harass the enemy beyond the frontier. A Margrave, Mark-graf, Earl of March, or Marquess was the warden of the Marches, who held his fief by the tenure of defending the frontier against all aggression, and this important office gave him rank next to the Duke or Dux, the leader of the forces of the shire. The root is found in all the Indo-Germanic languages, and is probably to be referred to the Sanskrit maryd, a boundary, which is a derivative of the verb smri, to remember. We may compare the Latin mar go, and the Persian marg, a frontier. The uncleared forest served as the boundary of the gau of the Teutonic settlers. Hence the Scandinavian mbrk, a forest, and the English word murky, which originally denoted the gloom of the primaeval forest. The chase took place in the forest which bounded the inhabited district, hence the Sanskrit mrga, chase, hunting. A huntsman being nearly synonymous with a horseman, we have the Celtic marc^ a horse, which has found its way into the English verb, to march, and the French word marechal, a groom or farrier. The Earl Marshal was originally the grand farrier,” or master of the horse ” — a great officer of state, like the grand falconer.^
The Scotch and the Welsh marches, for many centuries, occupy an important place in English history as the border- lands between England and her ancient enemies in Scotland and Wales. The Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia was the frontier province between the East Angles and the Welsh. On the frontier line we find Marbrook and Marchomley in Shropshire, Marbury in Cheshire, and Markley in Herefordshire.^ On the
^ Gaelic and Erse marc ; Welsh, Cornish, and Brezonec mar'ch. Com- pare the Anglo-Saxon mear, a horse, whence the English mare. According to Ammianus Marcellinus, the war-cry of the Sarmatians was — Marha, Marha, “ to horse, to horse.” Diefenbach, Orig. Europ. p. 90.
* On the word mark see Diefenbach, Celtica, i. p. 67 ; Origines Europ.
р. 429; V ergleichendes Worterhuch, vol. ii. pp. 50-53; Leo, Vorlesungen, vol. i. p. 144; Zeuss, Die Deutschen, p. 114; Diez, Etymolog. Worterhuch^ pp. 217, 682; Pictet, Orig. Indo-Europ. part ii. p. 408; Muller, Marken des Vaterlandes, pp. 216, 217; Verstegan, Restitution, pp. 171, 172; Kemble, Codex Diplom. vol. hi. p. xi; Blackstone, Commentaries, book i.
с. 7, § 4; Garnett, Essays, p. 16; Pott, Etymologische Forschungen, vol. ii. p. 116.
* There are fifteen English parishes called Marston, i.e. Markstone or boundary stone, one of which gives a name to the well-known battle-field of Marston Moor.
200
Words and Places
frontier between the Celts of Cornwall and the Saxons of Devon, stands the village of Marham. We have seen that the valleys of the Frome and Avon remained Celtic long after the surrounding country had been occupied by the Saxons. Some three or four miles to the south-west of Bath stands the village of Merkbury, the fortress of the march ’’ or boundary of the Welsh district. The names of the adjoining villages of English- combe ^ and English Batch seem to mark outlying portions of the English territory The town of March in Cambridgeshire is close to the sharply defined frontier line of the Scandinavian kingdom,^ and on the frontier of the little outlying Danish colony in Essex we find a place called Comarques.
Throughout Europe we find this word march or mark entering into the names of outlying or frontier provinces. The Marco- manni of Tacitus were the marchmen of the Sclavonic frontier of Germany.^ The names of the provinces of Altmark, Mittel- mark, Ukermark,^ and Neumark, which collectively constitute the Mark of Brandenburg, show the successive encroachments of the Germans on the Poles; Altmark, or the ‘‘ Old Mark,” being the farthest to the west, while Neumark, the ‘‘ New Mark,” is the farthest to the east. Denmark was the Danish frontier. Finmark, and four provinces called Lappmark, show the five successive stages by which the Scandinavian invaders encroached upon the territory of the Fins and Lapps. Moravia takes its name from the March, or Mor-ava, a bordering river.® Steyer- mark, or Styria, as we Anglicise the word, formed the south- eastern frontier between the Germans, and the Hungarians and Croats. Here we find the border town of Marchburg. The boundary of the Saxon colony in Westphalia is shown by the district called March, and there is a place called Marbach on the frontier of the Swabian settlement in Wiirtemberg. On the frontiers of the Saxon colony in Picardy we find the rivers Marbecq and Morbecque, a dike called the Mardick, and the
^ The name of Englishcombe is found in Domesday.
2 Guest, in ArchcBolog. Journal, vol. xvi. pp. iii, 112.
® See p. 133, supra.
Latham, Germania, Prolegomena, pp. liii-lvi; Latham, in Philolog. Proceedings, vol. iv. p. 190. Grimm thinks that the Marcomanni were the men of the forest, rather than the men of the frontier, Gesch. d. Deut. Spr. p. 503.
® The name of the Ukermark contains two synonymous elements — Ukraine being a Sclavonic word, meaning a frontier. The Ukraine on the Dnieper was the southern frontier of the ancient kingdom of Poland. See Latham, Nationalities of Europe, vol. i. pp. 5 and 376; vol. ii. p. 358.
® Grimm, Gesch. d. Deut. Spr. p. 505. The suffix ava is the Old High German aha, a river.
Historic Value of Local Names 201
village of Marck. In the Vosges, on the frontier of the Ale- mannic population of Alsace, we find the town of La Marche. One of the old provinces of France, called Marche, was the frontier between the Franks and the Euskarians of Aquitaine. The March of Ancona, and the other Roman Marches which have been recently annexed to the kingdom of Italy, together with the Marquisate of Tuscany, formed the southern boundaries of the Carlovingian empire. The Marquisate of Flanders ^ was erected at a later period as a barrier against the Danes. In fact, all the original Marquisates, those of Milan, Verona, Car- niola, Istria, Moravia, Cambe, Provence, Siisa, Montserrat, and many others, will be found to have been marks or frontier territories.
Two names survive which mark boundaries of the Roman empire. The name of the Fiume Della Fine, near Leghorn, is a corruption of the ancient name. Ad Fines. This river, about the year 250 b.c., formed the extreme northern limit of the Latin confederacy.^ The Canton Valais in Switzerland is curiously divided between a German and a French-speaking population. The Romans left the upper end of the valley to the barbarous mountaineers, and their descendants now speak German. The lower part, which was included within the Roman rule, is now French in language. The line of linguistic demar- cation is sharply drawn in the neighbourhood of Leuk. Here we find a village which is called Pfyn, a name which marks the iinesy the confines both of the Roman rule, and of the language of the conquerors.
A somewhat similar name is found in England. Devizes is a barbarous Anglicisation of the Low Latin Divisce^ which denoted the point where the road from London to Bath passed into the Celtic district.^ Even so late as the time of Clarendon, the name had hardly become a proper name, being called The Devizes, in the same way that Bath was called The Bath in the time of Addison.^
The former state of our island, divided between hostile peoples — Saxon, Celt, and Dane — is indicated not only by such names as Mercia and March, but by those of several of our English counties.® Cumberland is the land of the Cymry. Cornwall,
^ On the frontier of the Marquisate of Flanders are two towns called Marchiennes.
Mommsen, Hist. Rome, vol. i. p. 441.
* Guest, in Archceolog. Journal, vol. xvi. p. 116.
* See Saturday Review, August 22, 1863.
® See Grimm, Gesch. d. Deut. Spr. p. 658.
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Words and Places
or Com-wales, is the kingdom of the Welsh of the Horn. Devon is the land of the Damnonii, a Celtic tribe; Kent that of the Cantii; Worcestershire that of the Huicii. Sussex, Essex, Wessex, and Middlesex, were the kingdoms of the southern, eastern, western, and central Saxons. In Robert of Gloucester, the name of Surrey appears in the form of Sothe-reye, or the south realm. ^ Norfolk and Suffolk were the northern and southern divisions of the East-Anglian folk. The position on the map of what we call Northumberland — the land north of the Humber — ^proves that it was by aggression from the south that the Northumbrian kingdom, which once stretched north- ward from the Humber, was reduced to the restricted limits of the modern county. Hereford, the ford of the army,” was an important strategic point in the Marches of Wales, being one of the few places where an Anglo-Saxon army could cross the Severn to harry the Welsh borders.
These county names may serve to remind us of the discordant fragments that have at length been welded into a national unity, while numerous village-names, such as Saxby, Flemingsby, Frankby,^ Frisby,^ Scotthorpe, Normandby, Finsthwaite,^ and Danby, prove from how wide an area those bands of adventurers were collected who made their swords the title-deeds to portions of our English soil.
At the close of the period of Roman occupation, the Barbarian auxiliaries must have formed a not inconsiderable element in the population of Britain. From the Notitia Imperii, and from inscriptions, we learn that there were legions recruited from Moors, Indians,^ Cilicians, Dacians, Thracians,® Dalma- tians,"^ Sarmatians, Tungrians, Batavians, and from sundry tribes of Gaul, Spain, and Germany, which were located in various parts of Britain.® Local names preserve a few traces of these
^ On the forms in which this name appears, see Guest, On Gentile Names, in Philolog. Proceedings, vol. i. p. in.
® We have Frankby in Cheshire, four Franktons in Salop, and one in Warwick, Frankley in Worcester, and Frankham in Dorset.
* We find a Friesthorpe in Lincolnshire, two Frisbys in Leicestershire, Frieston in Lincolnshire and Sussex, and two in Suffolk, Frystone in York- shire, Friesden in Bucks, and Frisdon in Wilts.
* We have Finsthwaite in Lancashire, Fineston in Lincolnshire, Finsham
in Norfolk, Finstock in Oxon. ® At Cirencester.
® In Yorkshire, Shropshire, at Cirencester, and on the Wall.
^ In Norfolk, Lincolnshire, and on the Wall.
® See Wright, On the Ethnology of South Britain at the extinction of the Roman Government, Essays, vol. i. pp. 70, 71; Poste, Britannic Researches, pp. 99, 100; Latham, Ethnol. Brit. Is. pp. 99-101; Edinh. Review, vol. xciv. p. 187; Horsley, Brit. Rom. pp. 88-97, 102; Bruce, Roman Wall, p. 60.
Historic Value of Local Names 203
military colonies. The names of Quat and Quatford/ near Bridgenorth, in Salop, have been thought to bear witness to a settlement of Quadi ; and Tong,^ in Yorkshire, of the Tungrians. The ancient name of Hunnum on the Wall, and the modem one of Hunstanton, in Norfolk, may possibly be due to the Huns. There is only one name of this class, however, which can be referred to with any confidence. We are informed by Zosimus that large bodies of Vandal auxiliaries were settled in Britain by the Emperor Probus, and Gervase of Tilbury informs us that Vandalsburg in Cambridgeshire was a fortification raised by them. Vandalsburg is undoubtedly to be identified with the huge earthwork called Wandlesbury, which occupies the summit of the Gogmagog Hills. Wendlebury, near Bicester, in Oxford- shire; Windlesham, near Woking, in Surrey; Windleden and Wendel Hill, in Yorkshire; and Windle, in Lancashire, may, some of them, be Vandal settlements.^
Henry of Huntingdon informs us that the Piets, during one of their incursions, advanced as far as Stamford, where they suffered a bloody repulse. The remnant of this invading host may with some probability be traced at Pitchley in Northampton- shire, a place which, in Domesday, is called Picts-lei and Pihtes- lea, the laga or settlement of the Piets or Pehtas.^
Beyond the confines of England we find numerous names which denote intrusive colonisation, or the settlement of the remains of defeated armies. One of the most curious of these is Scythopolis, a strong natural rock-fortress in Eastern Palestine, the name of which is probably a record of the Scythian invasion in the reign of Josiah, which is recorded by Herodotus.^
The names of Servianika and Cravatta show that Servians and Croats penetrated into the Morea. In Westphalia we find
^ More probably from the Celtic coed^ a wood.
* More probably Norse.
®See Rennet t, Parochial Antiquities, vol. i. p. 18; Palgrave, English Commonwealth, vol. i. p. 355; Gough’s Camden, vol. i. p. cxxxix, and vol. ii. p. 213.
♦See Poste, Brit. Researches, p. 47. The pronunciation of this name, Peitchley, strongly favours the etymology suggested in the text. Compare also the phrases Sexena-laga, the seat or district of the Saxons, and Dane- lagh, that of the Danes.
® Herodotus, i. c. 105; Zephaniah ii. 5, 6; see Stanley, Jewish Church, p. 338; Sinai and Pal. p. 340; Bergmann, Les Giles, p. 26; Robinson, Biblical Researches, vol. iii. p. 175; Later Researches, p. 330; Brace, Races of the Old World, pp. 60, 61. It is possible that there may be truth in the tradition which asserts that the Frank Mountain, in the same neighbour- hood, was a refuge of the Crusaders. See Stanley, Sinai and Pal. p. 163; Robinson, Bihl. Researches, vol. ii. p. 171.
H 517
Words and Places
204
the adjacent villages of Frankenfeld and Sassenberg/ and in Hesse Cassel Frankenberg and Sassenberg stand face to face.^ In the Rhineland, Frankfurt and Frankenthal ^ are settle- ments of the Franks, just as Katzellenbogen ^ and Sachsen- hausen are of the Saxons. Flamandville and Sassetot in Normany, and Sueveghem in Flanders, are among the numerous names of the kind which might easily be collected.^ The West- mann Isles, opposite Hjbrleif’s Head on the coast of Iceland, were the refuge of some westmen, or Irish slaves, who slew their master, Hjorleif, and then fled for their lives.® We must, I fear, give up the curious tradition which derives the name of Canton Schwytz from a Swedish colony which settled there at some remote period.'^
^ Massmann, in Dorow’s Denkmdler, vol. i. p. 199.
^ Vilmar, Ortsnamen, p. 243.
® The ancient forms of these two names show that they are derived from the nationality of the inhabitants, and not, as is usually supposed, from the possession of certain franchises. Zeuss, Herkunft der Baiern, p. 38.
^ See, however, Dixon, Surnames^ p. 41.
^ Many instances have been collected by Zeuss and Forstemann. See Die Deutschen, pp. 608, 635, etc.; Die Deutschen Ortsnamen, p. 170.
® Baring-Gould, Iceland^ p. 2.
’ The Haslithalers affirm that they are Swedes. Hassle is a common local name in Sweden. See Geijer, De Colonia Svecorum in Helvetiam deducta^ quoted extensively by Strinnholm, WikingzUge^ pp. 190- 199.
CHAPTER XI
ENGLISH VILLAGE-NAMES
Survivals and modified forms — Personal Names — Occupations and status — Hundreds, shires, and parishes — ^Towns and townships.
The names of the English counties, of the county towns, and of some other places of importance have been already discussed, but something remains to be said respecting the component elements commonly found in the names of villages and the smaller towns. While the older forms of such names in Ire- land and Scotland have been collected and explained, no attempt has been made to examine systematically those of England. The names in a few counties or districts of limited extent have been dealt with in monographs of greater or less excellence, and a few sporadic names have been explained in learned periodicals or in the Transactions of local societies.
But for any general description of the ordinary elements found in English village-names we have to fall back on a short essay by Mr. Kemble in the third volume of the Codex Dtplo^ maticus, and on an appendix to the Rectitudines Singularum Personarum in which Professor Leo of Halle examined the names occurring in the first two volumes of the Codex.
A great difficulty in the way of any such attempt lies in the absence of an index identifying the names in Mr. Birch’s Cartularium Saxonicum, and in the unsatisfactory nature of the identifications of ancient names in the indices to the collections of charters published by Thorpe and Kemble, not to speak of the dubious authenticity of many of the charters themselves. Moreover, when dealing with the Domesday names, consider- able uncertainty arises from the difficulty of getting behind the capricious orthography of the Norman scribes, and so recovering the probable form of the underlying Anglo-Saxon name. A good example of this difficulty is seen in Mr. Bradley’s ingenious restoration of the older form of the Domesday name of Wormhill in Derbyshire. Hence the materials for a systematic treatise on the topographic nomenclature of England are so defective that all that can be here attempted is to give a few
205
2o6
Words and Places
examples from Domesday and the published charters of the older forms of typical names of frequent recurrence, so as to disclose the usual elements which enter into our village-names, and the principles on which they have been constructed.
§ I. Survivals of Grammatical Inflexion
In modem English the old case signs have been discarded, lingering only among the personal pronouns. Their influence is however apparent in the modern forms of many local names, which, owing to the meaning having become obscured, retain not unfrequently traces of the oblique cases in which they usually occur in ancient documents. In such documents, in Germany as well as in England, local names appear only excep- tionally in the nominative case, being as a rule in the dative, governed by a preposition. This came to be omitted, and the name in the dative, either the singular or the plural, is treated as if it were an indeclinable nominative singular. The same was the case with Roman names, Aix for example being from aquisy and Amiens from Amhianis, both dative plurals. So in Germany the names Bergen and Baden, which are dative plurals meaning at the hills ” and ‘‘ at the baths,’’ are treated as if they were nominatives in the singular. In the Saxon Chronicle the city of Bath is called cet Bathum, ‘‘ at the baths,” and after- wards Baihum, which is really a dative plural. Like Baden in Germany this dative plural might easily have been retained as the modem name, as has been the case in other instances, such as Bury St. Edmunds. The Anglo-Saxon hurh, a walled town, would normally become burgh or borough in modern English, as in such names as Edinburgh or Peterborough, but the more usual form -huryj which we have in Salisbury or Canter- bury, can only come from byrig, the dative singular. In the Chronicle the name of Canterbury occurs only once in the nominative as Cantwarahurh, but repeatedly in the dative as Cantwarahyrig, which is the source of the modern form of the name.
The preposition governing these cases has usually disap- peared, but in a few somewhat doubtful instances seems to have been incorporated into the name. Thus Byfieet in Surrey is apparently the place by the fleet ” or shallow stream of the Wey, as appears from the A.S. form Bi-fledt, which, however, might mean a ‘‘ side-stream ” or backwater. In the Boldon Book Biddick in Durham is called Bedic and Bydyk, ‘‘ by the
English Village-Names 207
dike.” Bewick in Holderness is called in Domesday Bi-wich, the place near or by the wic or inlet, now a marsh, whose former existence is also indicated by the name of the neighbouring village of Withemwick, called in Domesday Widfornewic, which, if not from a personal name, may incorporate the obsolete pre- position with-foran, in front of,” which is analogous to bi-foran, which we retain in the preposition before. So Binney in Kent is called in an A.S. charter Binnan-ed, “ between the waters.” Twynham, the old name of Christchurch in Hants, appears in early charters as Tweon-ed and Tweoxn-ed, afterwards becoming Twyneham (Domesday Tuinam). It stands at the junction of the Avon and the Stour, whence the name Tweon-ed, “ at the two waters,” tweon being the dative of tweo, two. In the parallel form Tweoxn-ed we have the form which gives our word betwixt (A.S. be-tweox). More doubtful cases are Etton, Northants, A.S. Et-tun, ‘‘ at the tun,” and Ayton and Acaster in Yorkshire, called Atun and Acastra in Domesday, probably “ at the tun,” and “ at the Chester.” There is a place called Attwell in Salop, and an Etwell in Derbyshire, called Etewelle in Domesday, while Atlow in Derbyshire is Etelawe, at the grave-mound.” Abridge in Essex is apparently the hamlet at the bridge,” but the old forms Affebruge and A^ebregge suggest that there may have been an off bridge ” or side bridge, not on the main road, but, as is the case, on a side road. Allerton By water in Yorkshire is called Alretune in Domesday, but in 1284 it has become Aller- ton juxta Aquam, doubtless a translation of the vernacular descriptive designation which has come down to us as Bywater, and suggesting an explanation of the name of Attwaters in Kent.
In Yorkshire we find a number of names derived from the dative plural in -um, which in Domesday usually appears as -un or -on, and in the modem names has been frequently assimi- lated to the familiar suffixes -holm or -ham. Thus from husum, ‘‘ at the houses,” the dative plural of hus, a house, we have the township of Howsham, in the East Riding, which appears in Domesday as Huson, while Housham in Lincolnshire is called Husum in the Hundred Rolls. Newsham, in the parish of Appleton-le-Street, is called in Domesday Newehusun, “ at the new houses.” Another Newsham, in Gilling Wapentake, is Newhuson in Domesday, and Newsham in Durham is Newsom in the Boldon Book. There are three Yorkshire villages now' called Newsholme, a form which must have been derived from the dative plural, although in all three cases Domesday has the nominative plural Newhuse. In other cases the Domesday
2o8
Words and Places
form is in the dative plural, while the modern name has reverted to the nominative singular. Thus there are three places in Yorkshire called Lofthouse, all of which appear as Loctehusum or Locthusum in Domesday, while Loftsome, in the East Riding, w^hich was called Lofthusum, still retains a vestige of the case ending. It may be noted that Lofthouse represents the Danish lopt-hus, which denoted a house with a loft or upper story, the mention of which shows that such houses were unusual. In Domesday Moorsholm in Cleveland appears as Moreliusum, “ at the moor-houses,’’ while Wothersome, a name in which the case ending has not been assimilated, was W odehusum, ‘‘ at the wood-houses.” Somewhat doubtful are the names of Huddles- ton in Yorkshire, called Hunchilhuson in Domesday, and Bewsholme, also in Yorkshire, in Domesday Begun ^ possibly “ at the bigs ” {bys) or buildings, but the names Stenson and Milson may probably be regarded as corruptions of Stanhusurn and Mylnhusum, ‘‘ at the stone-houses ” and “ at the mill- houses.”
The dative plural of the A.S. cot or cott (O.N. kot), a cottage,” is cotum or cottum, which explains the name of Coatham in Durham, of which the earliest recorded form is Cotum^ which afterwards became Cothome, and then Coatham. West Coatham, in Yorkshire, was formerly spelt Cotum and Cottum, ‘‘ at the cottages,” and a place now called Cottam was formerly Cotum, Cotton in Derbyshire, called Cotun in Domesday, explains the origin of the surname Cotton. Beadlam, Yorkshire, is called in Domesday Bodlum, ‘‘ at the bottles,” bottle being from botl,
a timber building,” whence the names Newbold and Newbottle. There are two places in Yorkshire called Hillam, both of which appear in 1284 as Htllum, ‘‘ at the hills.” Ham in Staffordshire is called Hilum in a charter of Ethelred, dated in 1004, though here the long vowel in the modem name presents a difficulty. Welham, a township in the East Riding, appears in Domesday as Wellun and Wellon, and in the fourteenth century more correctly as Wellom and Wellum, “ at the wells,” of which there are several, yielding a supply of water sufficiently copious to supply the waterworks of the neighbouring town of Norton. The suffix in Wellam, Notts (Domesday Wellum), has not, however, been assimilated to the familiar -ham. At Kilham in the East Riding the river Hull issues from the chalk hills in copious streams. The Domesday form is Chillon, and other early forms are Killom and Kyllum, which we may explain from the A.S. cylum, at the springs ” or sources. Cowlam is a Yorksliire
English Village-Names 209
village which stands on the summit of the wolds, which are here crowned by conspicuous neolithic tumuli. In old documents the name is spelt Culluniy and in Domesday it is Colnun, the first form pointing to kulum, '' at the knobs/’ the dative plural of the O.N. kula, “ a knob/’ and the second to kollunum, the dative plural with the article, of the O.N. kollr, '' a summit.” Near Cowlam is a place called Groom, where two deep, crooked dales traverse the chalk hills. The Domesday name Crognum may be explained from krogunum, the dative plural with the suffixed article, of the O.N. krdkr, a nook, bend, crook, or winding. In these, as in some other cases where the names are of Norse origin, the suffix may be the sign of the dative plural with the O.N. suffixed article. Laytham (Domesday Ladon) is probably from the dative singular of the O.N. hladar, a bam.” The name of Lathom House, which the Countess of Derby defended for four months against the forces of the Parliament, and which gives a title to an English earl, may probably be explained in the same manner. The same word is seen in the name of Lade, formerly Hladir, the old capital of the Throndhjem district in Norway, and as lathe, a barn, it still survives as a dialect word in the North of England. Kirkleatham, in Yorkshire, must be referred to another source, since it appears in Domesday both as Westlid and W estlidum, and as Letham in the fourteenth century. It may be from hlid, a slope or hillside, or perhaps from the O.N. hlid, a gate. From hrisum, dat. plur. of hris, bush or brush- wood, we have Riseholme in Lincolnshire, called Risum in Domesday, while Rysome and Rise in Yorkshire are both called Rison in Domesday, one of which has now thrown off the suffix which the other has retained. Thomholm, near Bridlington, is in Domesday Thirnon, “ at the thorns.” Askham is the name of a place in Notts and of two places in Yorkshire, all of which appear in Domesday as Ascam, possibly for Ascum, “ at the ashes,” while Acklam in Yorkshire is called in Domesday Achelum, which may be explained as dc-healum, “ at the oak slopes,” and Acomb was Acum, ‘‘ at the oaks.” Hallam, from which the district round Sheffield acquired the name of Hallam- shire, is called in Domesday Hallun, probably for healum, '' at the slopes,” like Halam in Notts and Hallam in Derbyshire, called in Domesday Halun and Holun, The A.S. holum would mean ‘‘ at the hollows ” or holes, which enables us to explain the names of Hulam or Holom in Durham, which is called Holome in the Boldon Book.
These names in the dative plural are easier to recognise than
210
Words and Places
those in the dative singular, because the vocalic suffix in the latter case is more liable to disappear. There are, however, a few names, chiefly on the coast of Holdemess, where, owing to false analogy or to assimilation, the suffix of the dative singular may have been retained. Thus Hornsea lies on the border of Hornsea Mere, to which the suffix -sea is supposed to refer. But Hornsea appears in Domesday as Hornesse and as Hornessei, forms which point to nesi, the dative singular of the O.N. neSy a nose or promontory. Hornsea would thus be the place “ at the ness ’’ which here juts into the mere. So Kilnsea, near Spurn Head, is Chilnesse in Domesday, also meaning ‘‘ at the ness.” Withernsea, near Hornsea, appears in Domesday as Widfornessei, which may be explained as withforan-nesi,
in front of the ness,” withforan, as already explained, being an obsolete preposition which we have also in the name of Withemwick.
In the foregoing cases it is the case sign of the substantive which has left traces in the modern name, but there are many instances in which we may detect a vestige of the case sign of the first or adjectival component of the name.
Thus Newton, the commonest of English village - names, normally appears in A.S. charters as Niwantune^ which is the dative singular. This has now usually been replaced by the nominative, in the same way that the datives Langandiine and Bradanforde have now become Langdon and Bradford. But occasionally the n of the dative case has been retained, as in the instances of the. A.S. Niwantune in Wilts and Bucks, which are now Newnton, instead of the usual form Newton. An abnormal spelling is exhibited by Neenton in Salop, which appears as Newentone in Domesday. Not uncommon is the assimilated form Newington, the origin of which is made clear in the case of Newington, Oxon, called Newintun (for Newantune) in a charter. In the case of Newnham, a name which occurs eleven times, the sign of the dative survives, as is shown by the old form Niwanham which occurs in Kent, Oxon, Northants, and Warwickshire. It is not only in names like Newnton, Newington, or Newnham that the sign of the dative is retained by the adjective, but also in such names as Hampton, Hanbury, Hampstead, or Hanley, where the medial w or ^ is usually due to the retention of the case sign of the dative of hedh, ‘‘ high,” which makes hedn in the dative singular of the definite declension. Hampton is usually a corruption of Hedntune, “ at the high So Hampstead in Middlesex, A.S. Hedm-
2 I I
English Village-Names
stede (for Hednstede), is probably ‘‘ at the high place/’ and Hanbury would mean either the “ high hill/’ or the ‘‘ high town/’ and as a matter of fact we find that Hanbury in Hants, Worcester- shire, Gloucestershire, and Warwickshire, are called Hedn- byrig or Hednbyri in A.S. documents, while Henley, Hanley, and Handley would mean the high pasturage,” Henley in Hants, Henley-on-Thames in Oxon, Hanley in Worcestershire, and Handley in Dorset appearing in A.S. charters as Hednledh. Hennor in Herefordshire is probably to be identified with a place called in a charter Hednofer, at the high shore,” and Hever in Kent has been identified with a place called Hednofre in a charter of 814.
Patronymic or clan names not unfrequently appear in the charters in the dative plural. In the majority of instances the case sign has been thrown off; Godelmingum being now Godaiming, and Ciwingum being Cheving, but its influence has occasionally transformed the name, destroying the patro- nymic suffix. Thus in Herts Wellingum has become Welwyn, and Braheingum has become Braughin, while Beadingum in Gloucestershire is now Beden. A personal name forming the first element of a local name was in the genitive. As will be shown in the next section, traces of the genitive in -s very commonly survive, as, for instance, in such names as Amersham, Aylesbury, Rolleston, Burstock, Oswestry, Ellesmere, Silksworth, and Evesham. Of the genitive in n the traces are less persistent, including, however, such names as Banbury, Wembury, Barn- borough, Lavenham in Suffolk, Dagenham in Essex, and others presently to be enumerated. Owing to the influence of assimi- lation the genitive in n has not unfrequently lapsed into the patronymic suffix -ing ; thus Bullingdon in Hants is a corrup- tion of Bulandun, Chillington in Somerset of Cylfantun, and Huntingdon of Huntandun, Traces of the names of animals in the genitive singular are seen in Hounslow, Gateshead, Ramsey, Gaddesden, and Cransley.
§ 2. Personal Names
In most countries, notably in England, Germany, and some parts of France, personal names are the most usual source of local names. Naturally the early Teutonic settlers “ called the lands after their own names,” our village-names being usually the sole existing memorials of the unknown adventurers from across the ocean, who, according to the Teutonic practice which
212
Words and Places
Tacitus records, either established themselves in the waste — discreti ac diversi, ut fons, ut campus, ut nemus placuit — or took possession of the lands of British owners.
In such cases the personal element of the name becoming meaningless in after times has been so disguised by contraction or assimilation as to be beyond recognition where the evidence of early documents is wanting.
Occasionally, as in the case of Edinburgh, Glasgow, Oswes^ try, Malmesbury, Chichester, Bamburgh, Bibury, Amesbury, Merthyr-Tydvil, Wolverhampton, Brighton, Bridgewater, or Montgomery, we possess historical knowledge, more or less precise and trustworthy, as to the person from whom the name was derived. This is frequently the case with towns and villages which have acquired distinctive suffixes derived from Norman lords who obtained the manors. Thus Bolton Percy and Wharram Percy were among the Yorkshire Manors which belonged to the great fee of Percy, and serve to remind us that the Percys were a powerful York- shire house before they obtained the Northumberland Earl- dom and the wardenship of the Scottish march. In the reign of Henry I. Melton Mowbray in Leicestershire belonged to the Mowbrays, from whom also the great central plain of Yorkshire takes its name of the Vale of Mowbray. Burton Constable was the capital manor of the hereditary Constables of Scarborough Castle. From the twelfth to the fourteenth century Ashby de la Zouch belonged to the family of La Zouch. In 1213 Stanford, Essex, passed by marriage to Richard de Rivers, and so acquired the name of Stanford Rivers. The neighbouring parish of Willingale was owned, when Domesday was compiled, by Hervey of Spain {de Ispania), and hence it acquired its present name of Willingale Spain. Thorpe-Arch or Thorpe Arches, Yorkshire, obtained its distinctive suffix from Osbem de Arcis, who holds it in the Domesday record. Stanton-Harcourt, near Oxford, passed by marriage in the thirteenth century to Robert de Harcourt. We learn from Domesday that Hooton Roberts, in Yorkshire, which as early as 1284 appears as Ho ton Roberts, was held of the king in capite by Robert, son of William. Such nominal affixes are found in every county, mostly commemorating families which have long passed away, or whose possessions have been merged in those of other lords.
In a few cases we have manorial names of more recent origin. Thus Audley End in Essex takes its name from the great house
English Village-Names 213
built by Thomas Audley, Lord Chancellor. Castle Howard^ in the North Riding, was the new name given to Hindershelfe by Charles Howard, third Earl of Carlisle, and the neighbouring Duncombe Park is a distinctively Southern form inappropriately transferred to Yorkshire by the Buncombes, Earls of Feversham.
But cases in which historical recognition is possible are rare, though not unfrequently we recognise familiar Anglo-Saxon or Scandinavian names without being able to say that the place was called from any personage bearing that name who is known to history. Thus from the common Scandinavian name of Ivar or Ingvar, we have Jurby in the Isle of Man, formerly Ivorby, Irby in Lincolnshire and in Yorkshire, as well as Ivory in Lincolnshire.
The invaluable Domesday record often makes it possible to detect such personal names, as well as to correct errors into which it otherwise would be easy to fall. Thus it might be supposed that Adlingfleet and Adlington were names of similar etymology. But a reference to Domesday will show that while Adlingfleet is the ‘‘ creek of the iEtheling ’’ or prince, Adlington was the tun of some person who bore the name of Eadwulf. To take a few instances of names now disguised beyond recognition, which may be detected by the Domesday record, we find that in Lincolnshire Addlethorpe was the thorp of Ardulfr, and Wools- thorpe of Ulfstan, while in Yorkshire Barlby took its name from Bardulf, Anlaby from Olafr, Onlaf, or Anlaf, Ganthorpe from Gamel, Sewerby from Siward, Thirkleby from Thorkill, Thorn- thorpe from Thorgrimr, Tholthorpe and Thurlstone from Thorulf, Osgodby from Osgod, Gunby from Gunnr, Amotherby, now pronounced Amerby, from Edmund, Armthorpe from Emulfr, Ellerby fronl Alward, and Foggathorpe from Fulcar. We also learn from Domesday that Burstock in Dorset was formerly Burwinestoch, that Bescot, near Walsall, was Bres- mundes-cote, that Osmaston in Derbyshire was the twi of Osmund, that W’oolfardisworthy in Devon, now locally pro- nounced Woolsery, as at some future time it will probably be spelt, was the worth or estate of Wulfheard, that Aimesworthy in Somerset was the estate of Edmund, and Edington was the tun of Edwin. A Yorkshire manor called lanulfestorp in Domesday, became Ulvesthorp in the fourteenth century, and is now Owsthorpe, a name whose etymology it would be vain to guess without documentary evidence. iUderley in Cheshire has nothing to do with alder-trees, but was the leak or field of Ealdred, Abberley, Worcestershire (D.B. Edboldlege), was the
214 Words and Places
field of Eadbold, and Ambaston in Derbyshire was the tun of Eanbald.
The names in Domesday have frequently been so corrupted by the Norman scribes that no certain conclusions can be drawn from them. But when the name chances to be preserved in an early charter it is generally possible to detect the original form. Thus in Kent we find that Sibbertswold, now pronounced Sheperdswell, was anciently Swythbrihtesweald, meaning the wood of Swythbriht, while Harrietsham appears in documents as HcBtigear desham y Aylesford as Mgelesjord, and Aylesthorpe as Mglesthrop. In Buckinghamshire Aylesbury was ^geles- hyrig, and Amersham was the A.S. Agmondesham. In Surrey Windlesham was Hunewaidesham, the ‘‘ home of Hunewald ’’ ; in Gloucestershire Calmsden was Calmundesden, the swine pasture of Calmund, and Dowdeswell was DogodeswelL In Somerset Baltonsborough was Baldheresberg^ and Congresbury was Cungareshyrigy the “ burgh of St. Cungar/’ who was buried there. Cuckamsley Hill in Berks was Cwichelmeshlcew , the
grave-mound of Cwichelm.’’ Wolverley in Worcestershire was Wulfweardingled ; while from Wilburg^ a woman^ we have Wilbur geham^ now Wilbraham in Cambridgeshire; and from the lady ^Elfgyth we have Mljgythe Cyric, now Alvechurch in Worcestershire. In Salop Albrighton was the tun of Ealdbricht or Aldbriht; Chelmick (A.S. Cheilmundewik) was the wic or village of Ceolmund, and Broseley^ called Burewardesley in a charter^ was Burhweard’s pasture. Bromsgrove in 804 was Bremesgrcef, the ‘‘grove of Breme”; and in 722 Willenhall, Staffordshire, was Willanhalch^ the healh of Willa. From other charters we learn that Barlaston and Burslem, both in Stafford- shire, are corruptions of Beorelfestun and Burwardes-lyme ; while in Derbyshire Alvaston and Breadsall were called Ale- wddestun and BregdeshalL Kynaston and Kinnerton in Salop are both from the personal name Cyneweard, appearing in charters as Kineverdeston and Kinevardon, Darlaston in Staffordshire was Deorlafestun, the “ tiin of Deorlaf,’’ and Harleston in the same county was Heorelfestun, the “ tiin of Heorowulf.” Dauntsey in Wilts was Domecesig, the “ isle of Domec,” and Hankerton, also in Wilts, was Honekynton. Been- ham, Berks, was Bennanhdm, the “ home of Benna,’’ and Kelve- don in Essex was Kynleveden, the “ swine pasture of Cynlaf.’’ Denchworth, Berks, was Denicheswyrth, and Droxford, Hants, was Drocelesford. Shitlington, Beds, is Scillingtune in a charter of 1066, in 994 Bilston was Bilsetnatun, the “ tun of the Bilscete,^
English Village-Names 215
and Alconbury, Hants, is Alkemondehiri in the Hundred Rolls.
As in some of the foregoing instances, the genitive singular, in which the personal names appear, has often left vestiges which may be traced in the modem forms. Thus the A.S. Daccanham, the “ home of Dacca,’’ is now Dagenham in Essex; Feccanhom^ Worcestershire, which belonged to Fecca, is now Feckenham; Lauanham, Suffolk, the “ home of Lava,” is now Lavenham; Toccanham, Wilts, the ‘‘home of Tocca,” is now Tockenham; Todanham, Gloucestershire, the “ home of Toda,” is now Todenham; and Hcedanham, Cambridgeshire, the “ home of Haeda,” is now Haddenham. But the n of the genitive has often disappeared. Thus Bleddanhlcew , Bucks, is now Bledlow; Corsantun, Wilts, is now Corston; EdppanwyllaTihwc, Oxon, is now Epwell; Teohhanwyrth, Beds, is now Tebworth; and Bake- well, Derbyshire, was Badecanwylle in 924. Vestiges of the genitive in -es are usually more persistent than those of the genitive in -n. Thus Belesham and Bodekesham in Cambridge- shire are now Balsham and Bottisham ; Beolmesthorp, Rutland, is now Belmisthorpe ; Corigescumb, Dorset, is now Corscombe; Doddesthorp, Northants, is now Dogsthorpe; Eadesbyrig, Cheshire, is now Eddisbury; Egonesham, Oxon, is now Ensham; Hunesworth and Egbaldeston are now Handsworth and Edgbaston near Birmingham; Sylceswyrth, Durham, is now Silksworth; Sideleshaniy Sussex, is now Sidlesham ; Rolfestun, Staffordshire, is now Rolleston; Posentesbyrig, Salop, is now Pontesbury; Ormisby, Norfolk, is now Ormesby; Fremesham, Surrey, is now Frensham; Eddleston, near Peebles, was Edolveston, and Middlesborough, Yorks, pronounced Millsborough, was formerly Medellesburghe,
As a general rule the syllable ing is a patronymic, denoting in local names the settlement of a descendant or of the family of some person. Thus in the Chronicle jElfred Mihelwuljing denotes Alfred, the son of Ethelwulf, and Pending signifies the son of Penda. In the translation of St. Luke’s Gospel, Seth Adaming is Seth, the son of Adam. So the .^scings were the royal family of Kent, the Azdings were the royal race of the Vandals, and the Balthings of the Visigoths. That ing is a patronymic is the rule, but occasionally it has a topographic significance, the men gf Kent being called Centings, the men of Britford are Brytf or dings , the men of Bromley Bromleagings , while the Catmceringas are the men of Catmere, the CoedmawYy or “ great forest,” and Orkneyingar is the name given to the
2I6
Words and Places
men of Orkney. We also find Dartington on the Dart, Torring- ton on the Torridge, Leamington on the Learn, and Ermington in the valley of the Erme, just as in Germany we have Bodungen on the Bode, or Tyrungen on the Tyra.
The syllable ing is sometimes merely the equivalent of the genitive or possessive, which is also the generative case. Thus JEthelwulfinglond is equivalent to ^thelwulfeslond, the “ land of Ethelwulf ’’ ; Alfreton, Derbyshire, was Mlfredingiun, equiva- lent to iElfredestun, the ‘‘ tun of Alfred Barlavin^on was Beorldiingtun, “ the tun of Beorlaf Wool-Lavington, Somer- set, was Wulfldvingtun, the “ tiin of Wulflaf and Woolbeding, Sussex, was WtcLfba^dingiun, the “ tiin of Wulfbaed.” The true patronymics are not always easy to distinguish. They may generally be recognised by being in the plural, either without a suffix in the nominative or dative, or in the genitive followed by a suffix such as -tun or -hdm. But even in these cases we meet with uncertainties, as the sign of the genitive plural is specially liable to fall out in charters carelessly written, or in those of late date. Thus Lakenheath, Suffolk, is called Laking- heth in a charter of Cnut, and Lacingahith in a somewhat earlier charter of Eadmund. Walsingham, Norfolk, is written Walsing- hdm in a charter which must be later than 1055, and Wcdsinga- hdm in one of earlier date. Hence many names which we first meet with in charters comparatively late may be really patrony- mics, though there are no means of actually determining whether they are so, or are merely possessives. To take a few examples which are undoubtedly tribe names or patronymics, we have from nominatives plural Birling, A.S. Bcerlingas ; Cooling, A.S. Culingas ; Hailing, A.S. HalUngas ; Mailing, A.S. MealUngas, all in Kent. In Sussex we have Brightling, A.S. Byrhtlingas ; Ditchling, A.S. Dicelingas ; Patching, A.S. Pcecingas ; Steyn- ing, A.S. StcBmngas. In Surrey we find Poynings, A.S. Pun- ingas ; Eashing, A.S. Ascengas, also Mscingum in the dative plural; Tooting, A.S. Totingas ; Woking, A.S. Woccingas; and Wittering, A.S. Wihtringas, In Essex we have Barking, A.S. Berecingas ; in Middlesex Yeading, A.S. GeddingaSy also in the dative plural cet Geddincggum ; in Gloucestershire Aven- ing, A.S. AEfeningaSy and also in the dative plural to Mfeningum ; in Hants Worting, A.S. Wyrtingas ; and in Oxon Bensington, A.S. Banesingas,
Occasionally we have forms apparently in the genitive singular, but these, if they occur in late charters, are more probably nominative plurals. Instances are Charing, Kent,
English Village-Names 217
A.S. Cerringes ; Tarring, Sussex, A.S. Terringes ; Roothing, Essex^ A.S. Rodinges ; and Terling, Essex^ A.S. Terlinges ; while Worthing^ Sussex, is Ordinges in Domesday.
Among the dative plurals we have Angmering, Sussex, A.S. Anger mertngum, also Angemceringtun ; Godaiming, Surrey, A.S. Godelmingum, a patronymic from Godhelm; and Reading, Berks, A.S. Reddingan. The dative plural, instead of disap- pearing as in the foregoing cases, has often come down curiously disguised. Thus, as already mentioned, Beden, Gloucester- shire, was formerly Beadingum, manifestly a dative plural; Welwyn and Braughin in Herts being Wellingum and Brahe- ingum. The ancient forms of nearly a thousand of the German patronymic names are known. The usual terminations are -ingum, -ingun, -ingan, or -ingen, which are dative plurals, or -inga, the dative singular.
The most general test of a patronymic is when we have the genitive plural -inga followed by some such syllable as -ton or -ham. Such are Catherington, Hants, A.S. Cateringaham, the '‘ham of the Caterings’’; Gillingham, Dorset, A.S. Gillinga- ham ; Mottingham, Kent, A.S. Modingaham ; Hoddington, Hants, A.S. Hodingatun ; Waldingfield, Suffolk, A.S. Wceld- ingafeld ; Effingham, Surrey, A.S. Effingeham ; Beddingham, Sussex, A.S. Beadingaham ; but Beddington, Surrey, is Bedin- tun, probably a possessive ; Coldred, Kent, is Colredinga gemere ; Keston, Kent, is Cystaninga mearc ; Lakenheath, Suffolk, is Lacingahith ; Pangboume, Berks, is Pegingahurn ; Petworth, Sussex, is Peartinga-wyrth ; Rainham, Kent, is Roegingaham ; Athelney, Somerset, is AEthelinga-ig ; Wateringbury, Kent, is W othringaber an ; and Lastingham, Yorks, is called Lastinga-eu,
In some of the cases just enumerated, such as Pangboume, Petworth, Rainham, or Welw)m, we should not suspect the existence of a patronymic if we did not possess the ancient form of the name. The syllable -ing has not unfrequently disap- peared in the modem name. Thus Patton, Salop, was Peatting- tun ; Kemerton, Gloucestershire, was Cynehurgingetun ; Powick, Worcestershire, was Poinegwie ; Troston, Suffolk, was Trost- ingtun ; Chillx)lton, Hants, was Ceohaldingtun ; Grittleton, Wilts, was Grutelingtone ; Elton, Hunts, was Ayllington ; Mongeham, Kent, was Mundelingham ; Nettleton, Wilts, was Neteiingtun ; Peckleton, Leicestershire, was Pakintun ; Fritten- den, Kent, was Efrethingdenn ; Wolverley, Worcestershire, is W ulf wear dig lea in one charter, and Wulferdin leh in another; Harden Huish was Heregeardinge hiwisc ; and Wantage, Berks,,
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Words and Places
appears in ^Elfred’s will as Waneting, On the other hand the syllable -ing is sometimes intrusive, either replacing an equi- valent genitive or from assimilation. Thus Billingsley, Salop, was A.S. Bilgesley ; Seckington, Warwickshire, was Seccandun or ScBcandun ; Bullington, Hants, was Bidandun ; Chadling- ton, Oxon, was Cadandun ; Chillington, Somerset, was Cylfan- tun ; Edington, Wilts, was Ethandun ; Allington, Wilts, was Ellendun ; Abingdon, Berks, was Mbhandun ; Aldington, Worcestershire, was Aldandun ; Harvington, Worcestershire, was Hervertonne ; Itchington, Warwickshire, was Icenantun ; Wennington, Hants, was Wythentun ; Withington, Gloucester- shire, was Wudiandun or Widiandun ; Warrington, Lancashire, is Walintune in Domesday; Covington, Lanarkshire, was in 1262 Colbayniston, the ‘‘tun of Kolbeinn,’’ an O.N. name; and Lamington was Lambinistun, In the Scandinavian districts the O.N. eng, a “ meadow,” occasionally appears as the prefix ing-, as in Ingham, Ingthorpe, and Inkset.
§ 3. Occupations and Status
In many cases it is not the names of early inhabitants that are recorded by our village-names, but their occupations, or the civil or ecclesiastical status of the owners or the manorial lords.
From Domesday we learn how considerable was the number of royal manors. Such royal ownership is sometimes signified by a distinctive affix, as in the case of King’s Langley, King’s Norton, or Lyme Regis. Lynn in Norfolk is known either as King’s Lynn or Lynn Regis. Such affixes are usually later than Domesday. Some, such as Kingsgate, Thanet, where Charles II. landed in 1683, or Princes Risborough, Bucks, which was a residence of the Black Prince, and others, are of historic or recent date. The older names are usually such compounds as Kingston-on-Thames, where so many of the Saxon kings were crowned, or Kingsclere, Hants, a residence of the West Saxon kings. In this class we may include Kingsbury in Middlesex and in Somerset, both called Cyngesbyrig in A.S. charters, while Kingsdown, Kent, was Cyninges dun, Kingswood, Gloucester- shire, was Kynges wudu, and Kennington, Berks, was Cenigtun, In the Scandinavian districts the vowel changes, Coningsby in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire appearing in Domesday as Cun- ingesbi, Conisbrough as Coningesburg, Coneysthorpe and Coney- thorpe as Coningestorp, and Coniston as Cuningestone, but Conybeare, Conisholme, and Coniscliffe and a few similar names
English Village-Names 219
may denote rabbit warrens (M.E. cony or conig^ a rabbit). To the A.S. ewen^ a woman, whence the word queen, we may refer Quinton in Northants, Worcestershire, and Gloucestershire, the last of which appears in a charter as Cwentun, which must signify the woman ^s tun. The related A.S. word ewene, a wench or harlot (Gay’s “ scolding quean ”), explains Quinbrook, Gloucestershire, A.S. Cwenenabrdc, as well as Quina Brook in Salop. Very curious is the assimilated name of Westow, Durham, called Wivestona in the Boldon Book, which, as well as the Yorkshire names of Westow, formerly Wivestow, and Winestead, called Wifestad and Wivessted in Domesday, must be from the A.S. wifes, genitive of wif, a woman. Weaver- thorpe, Yorkshire, was Wifretorp, from wifre, a weaver, and Wibtoft, Warwickshire, was Wihbetoft, from webbe, a webster.
Manors owned by bishops were as numerous as those belonging to the king, but many of them have only gradually acquired a distinctive prefix of ownership. Thus Bishopsbourne in Kent, a manor belonging to the See of Canterbury, appears in an early charter as cet Burnan, ‘‘ at the burn.” Bishopthorpe, the residence of the Archbishop of York, is called Torp in Domesday, and among his manors Bishop Wilton is entered merely as Wilton, and Bishop Burton as Burton, but Biscathorpe in Lincolnshire is called Biscopetorp in Domesday, and Bishton, Staffordshire, is Bisopeston (for Biscopestiin) in a charter. There is another Bishton in Gloucestershire, and there are places called Bishopton in Durham, Yorks, and W^arwickshire. There are forty-nine places called Preston (A.S. preost, a priest), and many more called Prestwick, Prestwich, Prestcot, and Prest- bury, doubtless denoting places with a resident priest, which, as we learn from Domesday, was quite exceptional.
Fifteen villages are called Knighton, in addition to others called Knightwick, Knightcote, Knightleigh, and Knightsthorpe. Knighton-upon-Teme in Worcestershire appears as Cnihtatun in a charter, and Knightwick, in the same county, as CnihtawiCy names plainly from cnihtay the genitive plural of cnikty which like the German knecht meant a servant ” or youth,” and not a knight in the modem sense of the word. Charlton is a common village-name in the south, corresponding to Carlton in the north. Charlton occurs twenty-nine times, Carlton forty times, and. Carleton twelve times. Five of the Charltons, all in southern counties, Sussex, Hants, Berks, Wilts, and Worcester, with Carlton in Norfolk, have been identified with places mentioned in charters as Ceorlatun, a name explained by ceorla, genitive
220
Words and Places
plural of ceorl, a peasant or husbandman, whence the modem word churl. In other cases the Domesday forms point to a cognate etymology, Carlton in Notts, for instance, being Carlatona, Charlston, Sussex, being Carletone, while Charlcombe, Somerset, was Cerlacuma, The same explanation applies to such names as Charlecote, Charley, Chorley, and Chorlton. It may be noted as a dialectic peculiarity that the eight places called Chorlton and the five called Chorley are all in the Mercian region. In Lincolnshire and Yorkshire there are places called Caythorpe, the first of which is Carltorp, and the second Caretorp, in Domesday. There are twenty-seven English villages called Hinton. When, as in the case of Great Hinton in Dorset, the Domesday form is Hineton, the name may be referred to the A.S. hine or hina, a servant, whence hind, the northern word for a farm servant. But when Hinton is represented in Domes- day by Hantona, as in the case of the three Somerset Hintons, Hinton Blewitt, Hinton St. George, and Charterhouse Hinton, the name must be explained as a doublet of Hampton, from hedn, dative of hedh, ‘‘ high.’’ Hinton in Somerset is Hyneton in the Hundred Rolls. Hinstock, Salop, called Stoche in Domes- day, becomes in the thirteenth century Hinestok, probably for Hinastoc, the hinds’ place.
There are several villages in the Danish districts whose names indicate a settlement of vikings, pirates who came, not from the northern fjords, but, as the name implies, from the Vik, or great bay between Norway and Sweden, now called the Skagerack. In Domesday Wigganthorpe, Yorks, is Wickenatorp, Wigston, Leicestershire, is Wickingestone, Whissendine, Rutland, is Wichingdene, Wickenby, Lincolnshire, is Wichingehi, Close to Wickenby is Westleby, called in Domesday Westledebi, the home of the westward sailor. A sumerlida, or summer sailor,” was a viking wh6 in spring started forth for an annual plundering expedition. One of them must have settled at Somerby in Leicestershire, called Sumerlidebie in Domesday, another at Somerleyton in Suffolk, called Sumerledetun in a charter. There are several places called Somerby, which, as well as Somersby, Lincolnshire, the birthplace of Tennyson, may be probably explained in the same way. Flotmanby and Hunmanby in Yorkshire were the dwellings of a floteman or sailor, and of a hundman or dogkeeper. The six places called Woodmancott or Woodmancote refer to the cot of a woodman. Smisby, Derbyshire, called Smidesby in Domesday, is the smith’s dwelling, while Smethcot in Salop, and Smethick or Smethwick (Smith-
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English Village-Names
wick) in Derbyshire and Staffordshire^ may be explained in the same way, but the four places called Smeaton in Yorkshire, all of which appear as Smidetune or Smedetone in Domesday, may be either the “ smithy tun,’’ or from A.S. smethe, a smooth place. Wrexham, Denbighshire, is called Wrightes ham in the Chronicle, probably from a personal name, since wyrhtan would be the genitive of wyrhta, a wright or workman.
The A.S. ceap meant cattle, saleable commodities, sale, business, or market. Hence Chepstow, Monmouthshire, in A.S. CeapstdWj means a place of sale. Chipstead, Surrey, called in an A.S. charter, Chepstede, the ‘‘ market-place,” is doubtless the same name as Chepstead in Kent. Kippax, Yorkshire, in Domesday Chipesche^ must have denoted at one time an ash-tree at which a market was held. Cheapside was the south-side of the great open market-place of London, the northern portion of which is now built over. The prefix Chipping, from the A.S. cyping or ciping, a market-place or market, is used to denote a market-town. We have Chipping Camden and Chipping Sodbury in Gloucestershire, Chipping Lamboum in Berks, Chipping Wycombe in Bucks, Chipping Warden in Northants, Chipping Barnet and Chipping in Herts, Chipping Ongar in Essex, Chipping Norton in Oxon, and Chippenham in Wilts and Cambridgeshire. The A.S. stapol, stapel, or stapul denoted a post or pillar of wood or stone. Such staples were often erected to mark places where markets were held or where merchandise could be exposed for sale. Thus Dunstable would be a staple on the chalk downs ; Whitstable, Kent, must have taken its name from a white pillar, erected either for a market or as a guide to ships entering the harbour. , A similar name is Barnstaple in Devon. There are nine places called Stapleford, but as none of them are market-towns the name must signify a ford marked out by posts. So also of the eight places called Stapleton, none of which are market-towns. The two Stapletons in Yorkshire are Stapledun and Stapletona in Domesday. Stal- bridge, Dorset, in Domesday Staplebrige, probably refers to a tresde bridge.
§ 4. Hundreds, Shires, and Parishes
The Hundred is the oldest and in many respects the most interesting of English institutions. It is so ancient that we do not know its origin. Of the original settlers a hundred families, or a hundred warriors, or the holders of a hundred hides.
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Words and Places
constituted themselves into groups for self-defence, with powers of local self-government. Unlike the hundreds the shires and counties were formed at very different periods, and owe their origin to a variety of causes, some representing ancient kingdoms, and others divisions of ancient kingdoms, or aggre- gated fragments of such kingdoms. We do not hear of Rutland as a county till the reign of King John, when certain hundreds of Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire were formed into a county, apparently as a dowry for the queen. In the twelfth century Lancashire was formed into an earldom by uniting the Mercian lands between Ribble and Mersey with the northern hundreds of York, Amounderness, and part of Richmondshire, with the addition of Furness, originally a part of Cumberland, which was the English share of the old Cumbrian or Strathclyde king- dom, Westmoreland being the Cumbrian march or frontier. Northumberland was the small remnant left of the great Northumbrian kingdom stretching from the Humber to the Forth which was left after the Lothians had gone to Scotland, after the patrimony of St. Cuthbert had been constituted into a county palatine, and the sub-kingdom of Deira had become the great shire of York, containing the subordinate shires of Cravenshire, Richmondshire, Borgheshire, now Claro Wapen- take, Riponshire, Norhamshire, Howdenshire, Islandshire, and Hallamshire, with the districts of Holderness and Cleveland. Norfolk and Suffolk were the northern and southern fylkes ’’ or folks of the East Angles. Essex was one of the primitive kingdoms, of which the capital was London, whose importance caused the surrounding district to become the county of Middle- sex. Mercia was divided into five regions, none of which was called a shire, and it was only after the reconquest of Mercia from the Danes in the reign of Edward the Elder that the Mercian shires were created and named after the chief towns. In Wessex, perhaps in 880 after the treaty between Alfred and Guthrun, we have the division into the primitive tribal settlements of Dorset, Wilset, Somerset, and Sussex, with Hamptunscir, Defnascir, and Bearrocscir. The sees of Rochester and Canter- bury long continued to represent the kingdoms of East and West Kent.
The wapentakes found in several northern counties were aggregations, each consisting of three hundreds, formed for the purpose of naval defence against the Danes, each wapentake having to furnish a ship. In some southern counties these divisions were afterwards called hundreds, as in Buckinghamshire,
English Village-Names 223
where the original eighteen hundreds are now combined into six new hundreds. The names of the wapentakes and hundreds are often of considerable historical interest, preserving a sort of record of the places at which the assemblages of the moots or hun- dred courts were held either for civil or military purposes. The meeting-places were usually at some conspicuous or well-known object: a hill, a ridge, a dyke, a ford, or a bridge, or very often an ancient tree, a monolith {stdn), a preaching cross {cros), a post {stapol), a barrow, a prehistoric grave-mound, either a law Qildw) or howe Qiaugr). The localities of many of these moots, especially the trees, the monoliths, and the staples, are now lost, although occasionally preserved by the names of adjacent houses. The older names of the hundreds are usually to be found in Domesday Book (D.B.), or in the Hundred Rolls (H.R.), com- piled about a century later in the reign of Edward I. in an English form more easy to recognise. The trees at which the moots were held occasionally bear the names of the persons near whose dwellings they doubtless grew. Such are the Hundreds of Edwinstree (H.R. Edwinestre) in Hertfordshire; of Thedwestry (H.R. Thedwardistre) in Suffolk, and Grumbald’s Ash (H.R. Grimboldesasse) in Gloucestershire. Naturally, trees with peculiarities of growth, appearance, or situation were often selected as the meeting-places. Thus in Herefordshire we have the Hundreds of Greytree (H.R. Greytre) and Webtree (H.R. Webetre or Welbetre); in Worcestershire, Doddingtree (H.R. Dodmtre or Dudintre) and Wodingtree; in Kent, Tolting- trough or Toltingtrow (H.R. Toltyntre)^ in Salop, Brimstry (H.R. Brimestree)] in Beds, Wixamtree; in Dorset, Cullifordtree (H.R. Culjor desire, D.B. Cufertstroue); in Gloucestershire, the lost Hundred of Burnetre (H.R.). In Essex we have Becontree (H.R. Bekentre) and Winstree (H.R. Wenstre)] in Sussex, Gostrow (H.R. Gosetreu); and in Yorkshire Gerlestre, now lost. There is a Langtree Hundred in Oxon, and a Longtree Hundred in Gloucestershire, both anciently Langetre (H.R.). In Lincoln- shire and in Leicestershire there are Hundreds called Gartree, anciently Gayrtre and Gertre (H.R.), meaning the ‘‘fir-tree”; in Derbyshire we have Appletree Hundred (D.B. Apultre, H.R. Appeltre), and in Notts there was the lost Domesday Hundred of Plumtre, Wellow Hundred in Somerset is the “ willow-tree ” (H.R. Welowe). A curious corruption is the Gloucestershire Hundred of Slaughter, the “sloe-tree” (H.R. Sloutre). An assimilated name, nearly as curious, is that of Manhood Hundred in Sussex (H.R. Manewode). Several Hundreds are named from
Words and Places
224
conspicuous ash-trees, among them Broxash or Brocash in Herefordshire, Barkstone Ash in Yorks, Grumbald’s Ash in Gloucestershire, and Catsash in Somerset (H.R. Cattesass). From oaks we have the Hundreds of Tipnoak in Sussex (H.R. Tipenoc), and of Skyrack in Yorks (H.R. Schyrayk, D.B. Sir aches) ^ the shire-oak.’’ Thoms are the most common, giving names to the Hundreds of Elthome (H.R. Elethorn) and Spelthome (H.R. Spelethorn) in Middlesex; Copthome in Surrey; Eythome in Kent; Crowthome in Gloucestershire; and Horethome in Somerset; as well as to the lost Domesday Hundred of Nachededorne in Berks, and the doubtful case of Godernihorn Hundred in Dorset. From staples or posts we have the Hundreds of Staple in Sussex, with Barstaple (H.R. Berdestapel), and Thurstable (H.R. Thurstaple) in Essex.
From crosses, probably either preaching or memorial crosses, we have in Berks the Hundred of Faircross; in Sussex Single- cross; in Hunts Normancross (H.R. Norntancros); in Norfolk Brothercross (H.R. Brotherescros or Broserescros) and Guiltcross (H.R. Gildecros, Geldecros, or Gyldecros), where some accustomed geld or paynient must have been made. In Yorkshire are the wapentakes of Staincross, the ‘‘ stone cross ” (H.R. Stainer os), Eweross, the yew cross”; Buckrose, the ‘‘beech cross” (H.R. Buc-cros)] Osgoldcross (H.R. Osgotescros, D.B. Osgotcros) and Sneculfcros, now lost; and in Lincolnshire, Walshcroft, a corruption of Walescros, and Walecros in Derbyshire, now lost.
From stones, probably monoliths of pre-Teutonic date, we have the Hundreds of Stone in Bucks (D.B. Stanes)-, Stone in Somerset (H.R. de la Stane)] Staine in Cambridgeshire (H.R. Stane), and the lost Domesday Hundred of Stane in Dorset. Ossulston Hundred in Middlesex (H.R. Ousolvestan, D.B. Osulvestone, “ Oswulf’s stone ”) was so called from a Roman stone of geometric shape, supposed to have been a milestone, which stood at Tyburn Gate, now the Marble Arch, Hyde Park. Whitstone Hundred, Staffordshire (D.B. Witstan), was the
white stone,” and there is also a Whitstone Hundred in Gloucestershire. From personal names we have the Hundreds of Cuddlestone in Staffordshire (H.R. Cuthuljestan)\ Kin ward- stone in Wilts (H.R. Kynewardestan)] Tibbaldstone (H.R. Thebaldestan), and Dudstone (H.R. Duddestan), in Gloucester- shire; and two lost Hundreds called Dudesian and Hamestan in Cheshire; as well as Bishopstone in Sussex; Washingstone in Kent (H.R. Wackelestan or Wachelestan); Hurstingstone
English Village-Names 225
in Hunts (H.R. Hirstingstan)] Bemptone in Somerset (H.R. Bemestan), and Axton in Kent (H.R. Acstane),
Hundreds were also often named from sepulchral mounds or tumuli (A.S. hldw or hl(ho), which may sometimes conserve the name of the hero or chieftain over whose remains the mound was raised. Such are the Hundreds of Bassetlaw in Notts (D.B. Bernedeslawe, H.R. Bersetelawe)] Beltisloe in Lincolnshire (D.B. and H.R. Belteslawe); Blidesloe in Gloucestershire (H.R. BUdeslawe); Bledisloe in Essex; Baldslow, Sussex (H.R. Baldeslowe); Oswaldslow in Worcestershire (A.S. Oswaldes- lawe); Huxloe, Northants (H.R. Hokeslawe); Offlow, Stafford- shire (H.R. Offelowe); Triplow, Cambridgeshire (H.R. Tripe- lawe); Munslow and Purslow in Salop (H.R. Munselawe and Posselawe); Segloe and Cotteslow or Cotslow in Bucks (H.R. Segelawe and Coteslau)\ Harlow in Essex (H.R. Herlawe); Radlow and Wormelow in Herefordshire (H.R. Radlow and W ormelaye)] Ringslow, Kent (H.R. Ringeslo), Botloe in Essex and Botloe in Gloucestershire (H.R. Botlowe); Knightlow, Warwick (H.R. Knytelawe); Bucklow in Cheshire (D.B. Boche- lau)] Hadlow in Kent; Totmanslow in Staffordshire, and the lost Hundreds of Tremalau and Pattelawe in Warwickshire. Broxtow Hundred in Notts is, however, a name of another class, appearing in Domesday as Broculestou, and in the H.R. as Broxholestowe, signifying the “ place at the badger’s hole.” In the Danish districts those grave-mounds or tumuli which are not distinguished by the suffix -low or -loe, from A.S. hldw, may usually be recognised by the suffix -hoe or -oe, which is the M.E. howe (O.N. haugr), not to be confused with the A.S. hogh, hoh, or hd, denoting a projecting heel of land. The names of Hundreds are usually from the former source, a howe forming a more recog- nisable object than a hoo. These names are as a rule confined to the Danish shires, occurring chiefly in Norfolk, Lincolnshire, and Yorkshire. In Norfolk the moot of the Hundred now called Forehoe (H.R. Fourhowe) was held on four adjacent howes or tumuli, and the moot of Greenhoe Hundred (H.R. Grenehowe} must have been held on a green howe. Gallo w Hundred in Norfolk (H.R. Galhowe, Galehowe, Galleho, and Galehoge) may be the gallows howe. We have also the Hundreds of Grimshoe,. Norfolk (H.R. Grimeshowe), and Thingoe, Suffolk (H.R. Thing- howe), where a Thing was doubtless held at some earlier time; with Staploe, Cambridgeshire (H.R. Stapelhowe or Stapilho), a howe marked by a post, while Spelhoe, Northants (H.R. Spelho), may be “ speech howe.” In Leicestershire we have
226
Words and Places
Sparkenhoe Hundred; in Yorks Claro Wapentake (H.R. Clar- hou and later Clarhowe)] and in Lincolnshire the Wapentakes or Hundreds of Aslacoe (H.R. Aslachow, D.B. Aslacheshou), Haverstoe (H.R. Haywardeshou, D.B. Harwardeshou), Candles- hoe (H.R. Candelshoue, D.B. Calnodeshou), which apparently contain proper names, as well as Graffoe (H.R. Gra-ffhow or Gra-ffhou)y the “grave howe’’; Langoe (H.R. Langhou, D.B. Langehou), the “ long howe Elloe (H.R. Ellowe, D.B. Elleho), Wraggoe (H.R. Wraghou, D.B. W aragehou), and Threo or Treo (D.B. Trehos, H.R. Trehou, Plac. Abb. Trehowes), the “ three howes ” like Forehoe in Norfolk. The Wapentake of Lawress called Lagulrts in Domesday, and afterwards Lagoljris, may have been from the cairn or raise (O.N. hreysi)y erected over some viking named Lagiilfr. Other moots were held on con- spicuous hills, as in the case of the Hundreds of Tintinhull, Somerset (H.R. Tintekille), Pimhill, Salop (H.R. Pemehul and Pemenhull)] Buttinghill, Sussex (H.R. Bottinghull); Brownshall, Dorset (H.R. Broneshull); Hill, Lincolnshire (H.R. Hidle); Calehill, Kent (H.R. Kalehull); Harthill and Tickhill in York- shire (H.R. Herthill and Tykehull),
From berwe, dative of hearo, a “ barrow ” or wooded hill, we have in Dorset the Hundreds of Hundreds-barrow (H.R. Hun- dredes berewe)^ Row-barrow (H.R. Ruber^), and Loose-barrow (H.R. Lesseberwe). In Gloucestershire we have Brightwells- barrow (H.R. Bristewaldeberewe), and in Kent Bewsborough (H.R. Bewesberwe). With these names from barrows those from beorge, dative of beorh, a “ hill,’’ are liable to be confused. Thus we have the Hundreds of Swanborough, Wilts (H.R. Swaneberge)] Swanborough, Sussex (D.B. Soanberge)] Hawkes- borough, Sussex (H.R. Havekesberge)', Fle'Xborough, Sussex (D.B. Flexeberge, A.S. fleax, flax); Loningborough, Kent (H.R. Lonebergh)] Felborough, Kent (A.S. Feldbeorge)] Hounds- borough, Somerset (H.R. Hundesberge)] Branch, Wilts (H.R. Brenchesberge)] Babergh, Suffolk (H.R. Badberge and Balberge); Roborough, Devon (D.B. Rueberge); and the Wapentake of Langbargh, Yorks, formerly Langeberge,
Assimilated to these Hundred-names in -borough, from beorge, are others from moots held at ancient earthworks. Thus the Dorset Hundreds of Badbury and Modbury appear in Domesday as Bedeberia and Morberga; Ramsbury Hundred, Wilts, is Rammesbyre in the H.R., and the Hundred of Guilsborough in Northants is called Gildeburg and Gildesburg in the H.R., indicating, like Guiltcross Hundred in Norfolk ^H.R. Geldecros
English Village-Names 227
and Gildecros), a place where a geld or payment of some kind had to be made. The curious name of Sixpenny Hundred in Dorset (D.B. Sexpena), and that of Sixpenny Handley Hundred in Wilts^ so called from the village of Sixpenny Handley in Cranboume Chase, must have arisen from some custom of the Hundred Courts, probably the payment of a fine of sixpence from each manor in the hundred. In Devon Hundreds are named from ridges and tors, as the Hundreds of Coleridge (H.R. Colrig); Hayridge (H.R. Harrigge); or Witheridge (D.B. Wttric, H.R. Wytherigg and Wyrigge), as well as Haytor (H.R. Hartorr and Haytorr). Elsewhere we have names from duns, cliffs, or hills, as the Hundreds of Smithdon, Norfolk (H.R. Smethedune) ; Cawden, Wilts (H.R. Cawedone) ; Cleeve, Gloucestershire (H.R. Clive); Rushcliffe, Notts (H.R. Rise- dive); and Hartcliffe, Somerset (H.R. Haredive). Dikes were also used for moots, as in the Hundreds of Launditch, Norfolk (H.R. Laundiz); Wrangdyke, Rutland (H.R. Wrangedik); Fiendish, Cambridgeshire (D.B. FlamindiCj and H.R. Flemdich; Coomsditch, Dorset (H.R. Cumehusdich), probably the same as D.B. Conor esdic; and Dickering Wapentake, Yorks, where the moot was at the great Danes’ Dyke at Flamborough Head.
Among the commonest Hundred-names are those from fords and bridges, the most curious of which is Cashio Hundred, Herts, called in the H.R. Caysjord, apparently a ford over the River Chess. Many names denote moots by the water-side, such as the Hundreds of Mere, Wilts (H.R. Mere); Broadwater, Herts (H.R. Bradeivatre); Willybrook, Northants (H.R. Wyle- hrok); Condover, Salop (H.R. Condovere and Conedovere); Overs, Salop (H.R. Overes and Cures); Hasler, Dorset (D.B. Haselora, H.R. Haselore); Lewknor, Oxon (H.R. Leukenore and Leweknore); Pershore, Worcestershire (H.R. Per sore). Blackbourn Hundred in Suffolk seems to be an assimilated name, being called Blakehroue in the H.R., where, however, the true reading may be Blakebrone, n being easily misread for u.
There are many names like Moat Hill, which may have been places of popular assembly, either hundred moots or shire moots. Such perhaps was Landmoth in Yorkshire, which is called Landemot in Domesday. The chief manor of the Falconbergs, Lords of Holdemess, was at Rise, and in Rise Park there is a mound called Moat Hill, where probably the Holdemess moot assembled. The name of Rise itself may refer to this mound, if, as is possible, it means a “ raise, ” that is a cairn or heap of stones. In Domesday Rise is called Rison, which might be
228
Words and Places
explained by the O.N. hreysum, from hreysi, a raise or mound, whence Dunmail Raise. Occasionally these names point to Scandinavian rather than to Anglo-Saxon institutions. Such, as a rule, are names like Walsoken in Norfolk, or Thorpe le Soken in Essex, which retained the local jurisdiction {socn) of the Danish freeholders.
Still more unmistakable are names like Thingo^ Hundred in Suifolk, called Thinghowe (H.R.) and Thinghow in a charter, which points to a howe on which the Danish Thing was held. Taingoe Hundred, also in Suffolk, may be a variant form of the same name. Dengie Hundred, Essex, formerly called Danesey, is the Danes’ island ; and Dacorum Hundred in Herts also takes its name from the Danes who were left on the Saxon side of Watling Street in Alfred’s division of the kingdom. In these, and some other hundreds, the population seems to have been wholly or mainly of Scandinavian origin. But in other districts the Anglo-Saxon population was not dispossessed by the Danish invaders, who seem to have settled down side by side with them in a manner not unfriendly. Local names furnish a curious support of this theory. Thus parishes in the north of England frequently comprise two or more townships, possessing distinct rights of self-government and taxation. In many cases the name of one of these townships, generally the older and larger, which gives its name to the whole parish, has an Anglian suffix, such as -ton or -ham, while the subsidiary township has a Danish ending, like -thorpe or -hy. To take a few instances from the East Riding, the Parish of Settrington contains the two town- ships of Settrington and Scagglethorpe, one Anglian, the other Danish; the contiguous Parish of Langton contains the town- ships of Langton and Kennythorpe ; the Parish of Burton Agnes contains the townships of Burton and Haisthorpe; the Parish of Cayton contains the townships of Cayton, Killaby, and Osgodby; the Parish of Bishop Wilton contains the townships of Wilton, Belthorpe, Youlthorpe, and Gowthorpe; the Parish of Brantingham contains the townships of Brantingham and Thorpe; the Parish of Catton contains the townships of Catton and Kexby; the Parish of Cottingham contains the townships of Cottingham and W'^illerby; the Parish of Hay ton contains the townships of Hay ton and Beilby; the Parish of Pockling- ton contains the townships of Pocklington, Owsthorpe, and Meltonby; the Parish of Humbleton contains the townships of Humbleton and Danthorpe. On the other hand it is quite exceptional to find the name of the parish ending in -thorpe or
English Village-Names 229
■^hy, and the subsidiary townships in -ton or -ham. The ex- planation seems to be that the township which gave a name to the parish was the original Anglian settlement, while the later Danish immigrants settled on outlying waste lands, where they established a separate community, which has preserved its independent rights of local self-government and taxation. It is curious to note that in many cases the townships in -ton and -ham are the property of a single squire, while the townships in -by and -thorpe are owned by a number of small freeholders.
There are a few parish-names from which intimations as to ancient tenures or hidation may be gathered. In some cases the names bear witness to the number of hides at which they were assessed. Some contained only a single hide, such as Huish Episcopi in Somerset, which means the Bishop’s Hide, huish being a later form taken by the A.S. Hwisc, a hide of land.” The name of the owner also appears in the name of Hardenhuish in Wilts, which was the Hide of Heregeard, as is proved by the Anglo-Saxon name Heregeardingc Hiwisc. Huish Champflower in Somerset acquired the name of its owner at a later period, as in Domesday it is called simply Hiwys, “ the Hide.” Another place in Devon, called Hewis in Domesday, is now known as South Huish, and Rodhuish in Somerset is in Domesday Radehewis. While these parishes contained only a single hide, the names of others testify to a higher assessment. Fifehead, a parochial name as common as Huish, signifies that the parish contained five hides. Thus Fifehead Neville in Dorset has been identified with a place which we learn from Domesday contained five hides, and was called Fifhide. Sydling Fifehead, also in Dorset, is called Sidelence in Domesday, the second name, acquired since the date of Domesday, being explained by the statement that it contained five hides. There is also a Fifehead Magdalen in Dorset, and a Fiveheads in Somerset, called Fihida in Domesday. Fifield, Essex, is Fijhide in Domesday. Sometimes the hidage was much larger. A manor on the River Piddle in Dorset, and hence called Pidre in Domesday, contained, we are told, thirty hides, which explains the fact that it now goes by the name of Piddletrent- hide, to distinguish it from other places taking their names from this river.
Land was also measured by the quit rent paid — often an ounce of silver, or a pennyweight, or a farthing. Thus in North Uist we have a place called Unganab, the abbot’s ounce,” the abbot receiving a rent of an ounce of silver. The places named
Words and Places
230
Ayre or Eyre, when not corruptions of Eyfar, islands/’ or of Eyriy a ‘‘ spit of land/’ may be explained as Eyrir or oers^ ounce lands/’ either eighteen or twenty pennylands making an oer, or ounce land. We have also cases of pennylands. Penninghame, near Newton-Stewart, was a hain or inclosure held at the rent of a silver penny. Pennymuir, Penny town, Pennyghael, Pennycross, and Penmollach, in Scotland, Penny- moor and Pennycross in Devon, and Pennyplatt in Wilts, may also be cited as penny lands, so called because the homestead paid a silver penny as scot.
The name of Sixpenny Handley in Wilts, already mentioned, may have arisen in a similar way. Farthingland and Farthing- hoe in Northants were probably lands which paid a farthing scot, or possibly were the feorthlings or fourth parts of an estate in culture. At Galton in Dorset we have an undefined rent, the Domesday name Gaveltone pointing to the A.S. gavel or gafol, rent ” or ‘‘ tribute.” Gidley in Devon is called in a charter Gijie, meaning probably a ‘‘ gift-lea ” or pasture. Oundle, Northants, A.S. on Undalum and Undala, was undealt ” or undivided land. Unthank, the name of three places in Cumber- land and two in Northumberland, denotes a piece of ground on which some squatter had settled without leave ” of the lord. Offenham, and perhaps Hovingham, may signify an Of-nam, or piece of land taken off ” a larger tract still uninclosed. There is an old deed which describes an of-nam which was given from the lord’s outlands {de utlandis). There are twenty-eight places called Buckland. Four of these, in Berks, Dorset, Kent, and Somerset, appear in extant charters as Bocland, which is ex- plained as Book-land, or land held by a charter, from bdc, a book or writing. But Boughton, A.S. Boctun, is more probably from h6c, a beech-tree, while nam.es like Buckley, Buckhurst, Buck- holt, or Buckden, may be referred to hue, a stag or buck.
Theale, near Reading, called Le Thele in the Hundred Rolls, apparently takes its name from the telga or teUa (German zelge), which denoted the third part in a three-field system of culture. Tils worth, Beds, formerly Telgaszvorth, is from the same source. But Tiley in Dorset is called in an A.S. charter Ttgelledh, the potter’s field ” (A.S. tigel, a tile, brick, or pot). There are a number of places, mostly hills, whose names imply that on them watch or ward was kept. To the A.S. weard (m.), gen. weardes, a warden or watchman, or to weard (f.), gen. wearde, guard, watch, vigilance, we may refer such names as Warborough, Oxon, called in charters Weardesheorh and Weardburg, Warden
English Village-Names 231
in Kent, A.S. Weard-dun, Warboys, Hunts, A.S. Warde-husc, and Warburton, doubtfully identified with an A.S. W ear dhurh,
Warkton, Northants, in A.S. Weargedun, may be explained either as wolf hill, or robbers hill, from A.S. wearg or wearh, a villain, and hence a wolf, and Warley, Essex, A.S. Wcerledh, may be from the same source. Wareham, Dorset, called Werham in the Chronicle, is explained by the A.S. w&r or wer, a weir or dam, whence probably Warehome, A.S. Werhornas, and Ware in Hertfordshire. Warminster, Wilts, in A.S. Worge mynster, Domesday Guerminstre, was identified by Camden with the Roman Verlucio, This is probably erroneous, as well as the derivation from the A.S. weorc, or wore, work. Warminster stands on the Willy where it is joined by a small stream now called the Were, and most probably is the minster on the Were.
§ 5. Towns and Townships
While -Chester, -cester, and -caster, dialectic forms of the A.S. -ceaster, are the characteristic suffixes which mark sites of Roman occupation, the A.S. burg, buruh, or burh, whence the modern forms -bury, -burgh, or -borough, ordinarily distinguishes defensible places, either of Teutonic foundation, or occasionally earlier pre-Teutonic earthworks like Amesbury, Avebury, Masbury, Ogbury, Egbury, or Yarnbury. The word burg or burh, which afterwards came to mean a town or city, primarily denoted an earthwork, or sometimes merely the house of the powerful man, defended by a ditch with a bank of earth or sods, as contrasted with the /wn, which was the inclosure of the peasant, surrounded by a simple hedge. The modern forms of burg or burh, especially when derived from the oblique cases, often become identical with derivatives from beorg or beorh, a hill,” an ambiguity which also attaches to their German equivalents burg and berg. The A.S. burg, buruh, or burh (f.), a ‘‘ town,” makes the genitive burge and the dative by rig and byrg, while beorg or beorh (m.), a “ hill,” makes the genitive beorges and the dative beorge. In Middle English we have burghe and borge for a town, and berghe or bergh for a hill. Hence, when the earlier forms are unknown, the sources of the modern names are frequently undistinguish- able. An instance of this ambiguity is seen in the Yorkshire names Knaresborough and Riseborough, the first of which is from burg, and the second from beorg, as appears from the Domesday forms Chenaresburg and Risberg or Rysbergh. In the case of Aldbrough and Brechenbrough, the one w^as Aide-
232 Words and Places
burgh, the “ old town/’ and the other was Brachenhergh,
bracken hill.”
The chief modem forms of burg or burh are bury and borough, forms which are also assumed by beorg or beorh, A notable circumstance, which seems hitherto to have escaped due atten- tion, is that in those districts where bury means a town, borough usu^ly denotes a hill, and vice-versa where borough, burgh, or brough usually denotes a town, bury means a hill. Thus in the heart of Wessex we have Salisbury, Amesbury, Heytesbury, Shaftesbury, Westbury, Melbury, Badbury, Spettisbury, Tis- bury, Whichbury, Tetbury, Ramsbury, Newbury, and Kintbiiry, all of which are from byrig, the dative of burh; while in the same region we have Wanborough, Famborough, Bagborough, Brokenborough, Risborough, Rodborough, Charborough, Chel- borough, and Crowborough, all from beorh, a “ hill,” as well as Stowborough, Dorset (D.B. Stanberge), and Felborough, Kent (A.S. Feldbeorh), the hill on the plain.” Willesborough, Kent (A.S. Wifelesbeorge), may be “ beetle hill.” An apparent exception to the rule is the town-name of Marlborough; but here Mcerlebeorh, the A.S. name, shows that Marlborough originally denoted a hill and not a burgh. On the other hand, where borough, burgh, or brough is normally from burg, a town, the names in -bury are from beorh, a “ hill.” Thus in Yorkshire Conisborough, Goldsborough, Mexborough, Kexborough, Guis- borough, and Hemingborough are all from burg, while the names in -bury, such as Horbury, Sedbury, Welbury, Almondbury, and Burythorpe, are from beorg, represented in Domesday by bergh, berg, berge, or berie. Where bury means a town, it is derived from byrig, the dative of burh» For example, in Anglo-Saxon documents Sidbury, Devon, appears as Sy debirig, the burgh on the Sid”; Kintbury, Berks, as Cynetanbyrig, the “burgh on the Kennet”; Shaftesbury and Abbotsbury, in Dorset, as Sceaftesbyrig and Abbodesbyrig, the “ abbot’s burgh ” ; Little- bury, Essex, as Lytlanbyrig ; Sudbury, Suffolk, as Suthbyrig ; and Bury St. Edmunds, as Eadmundesbyrig, While in the south bury is usually from byrig, the dative of burh, the forms burgh and borough are usually from the nominative burh or buruh, as is well shown in the case of Peterborough, where, as we learn from the Chronicle, after Abbot Kenwulf had built a wall round St. Peter’s Abbey at Medehamstead, the place obtained the new name of Burh or Buruh, whence the modern name of Peter- borough. It will be noticed that the form bury, from by rig, prevails in the Saxon and Mercian districts, where the Saxon
English Village-Names 233
inflexions were familiar^ while in the Anglian and Danish counties borough, ixom buruh, is usual, burgh being found in Northumber- land and Scotland. Thus in the South, Canterbury, Tilbury, Sudbury, Aylesbury, Banbury, Newbury, Salisbury, Glaston- bury, Bibury, Tenbury, Malmesbury, Tewkesbury, Ledbury, Shrewsbury, and others already enumerated, are from byrig, names in borough, as Wanborough, Crowborough, or Marl- borough, being from beorh or its dative beorge, while in the Danelagh and Northumbria Peterborough, Gainsborough, Conisborough, Guisborough, Hemingborough, Spro thorough, Goldsborough, Knaresborough, Scarborough, and Flamborough are from buruh, the names in bury being from beorh. Further north we have Dunstanburgh, Bamburgh, Roxburgh, Jedburgh, Dryburgh, and Edinburgh, where the spelling shows that Edin- borough, the present pronunciation, is of recent date.
Though the normal forms are bury and borough, sundry variants and anomalies occasionally occur. For instance, Barugh in Yorkshire, and two places called Bargh, all pro- nounced Barf, are represented in Domesday by Berg, A hill is sometimes -berry, as Berry Pomeroy, Devon, or Greenberry and Roseberry in Yorkshire. Both burh and beorh may become bur or ber in modem names. Thus Burford, Oxon, called Beorgeford in the Chronicle, and Berghford in a charter of 685, is the ‘'hill ford”; another place, which has been identified with Burford in Salop, appears in a charter as Buruhford, signifying a ford near a burh or earthwork. Burbage, Leicester- shire, A.S. Burhbeca, is a beck near a burh; and Burstead, Essex, is the A.S. Burgestede, The A.S. burh becomes ber in Bramber, Sussex; while Limber and Sowber are Limber ge and Solberge in Domesday. Great Berkhamstead, Herts, is from the A.S. Beorh-hamstede, the homestead on the hill; Berstead, Sussex, is probably the Berg-hamstyde of a late charter, and Berwick-upon-Tweed was formerly Beor-wic, Bourton in Berks and Gloucestershire both represent an A.S. Burgtun ; and Burley, Yorkshire, though spelt Burgelai in Domesday, is probably the “ hill pasture.” In the case of Hoborough, Lincolnshire (D.B. Haburne, H.R. Haburg), and Loughborough, Leicestershire (D.B. Lucteburne, H.R. Lutherburg), the Domes- day record is probably in error, burg being misheard or mis- written as burn, Carisbrooke, on the other hand, is a corruption of Wihtgaraburg, Another curious form is seen in Bridgev/ater, Somerset, which is a M.E. corruption of Burgh Walter. A curiously assimilated name is Scorborough, in the great Deira
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wood^ near Beverley, called in Domesday Scogerbud, signifying a forest hut ” (O.N. bud, a booth or hut, and skogr, a wood or forest). We have also the forms borrow and barrow, as in two places in Yorkshire called Borrowby, which are both Bergebi in Domesday, while Barrowby, Lincolnshire, is also Bergebi in Domesday. But Barrowcote or Barwardcote, in Derbyshire, is from a proper name, meaning Beorweard’s cottage, as appears from the Domesday form Berverdescote.
But as a rule barrow is from bearwe, the dative of bearu or bearo, a wood, wooded hill, or swine pasture. Thus Barrow- upon - Humber, Barrow in Rutland, Gloucestershire, and Leicestershire, are all Bearwe or Barwe in charters, and Barrow, Derbyshire, is Barewe in Domesday. Sedgebarrow, Worcester- shire, was Secgesbearwe, and Mapleborough, Warwickshire, was Mapelesbarwe. Wigborough, Essex, is a doubtful name, as we have the two forms, Wigberga and Wigberwe, of which the second might be a late form of the other. While bearwe is the dative singular of bearu, the dative plural is bearwum, which may explain Barum, the local designation of Barnstaple. From the nominative bearo or bearu we get ber, here, and bear, in the same way that we get dene and dean from denu, and tear from tearu. Hence we may probably explain the names of Pamber Forest, of the Forest of Bere and the Hundred of Bere Regis (D.B. Bera), and Beerhackett in Dorset, as well as some thirty Devonshire names, such as Beer, Beerferris, Bear Alston, Lox- bear, Rockbeare, Kentisbeare, Shebbear, and Aylesbere.
In such names as Burford or Burton, we have seen that the prefix may be a corruption of either burh or beorh. In the case of Burton it is frequently from the A.S. bur (I jwer), a storehouse, chamber, or sleeping-place. Burton signifying a tun or inclosure containing such a building. The A.S. word bur cote also denoted a chamber or sleeping-place, whence the name Burcott in Somerset (A.S. Bur cot), and other places of the same name. Burtoft, in Lincolnshire (A.S. Burtoft), must have been a toft containing a bur or bower. Burham, in Kent, called Burham in a charter, would be a ham or inclosure containing a bur or dwelling. This does not exhaust the possible significations of this troublesome prefix, since Burdale, Yorkshire (D.B. Bred- dale), is the broad dale”; while Burstock, Dorset (D.B. Burewinestocli), and Burcombe, Wilts (A.S. Brydancumb), are from personal names.
The suffixes -ton and -ham are especially characteristic of English townships. It will be noticed that while the names in
English Village-Names 235
-ham seldom agree in the prefix, the contrary is the case with names in -ton, which mostly consist of large groups of homonyms. The cause of this difference is not difficult to discover, the first element of a name in -ham being commonly the personal name of the settler who first made the place his ham or “ home ’’ ; while a name in -ton, which signifies a farmstead, is commonly preceded by an adjectival term descriptive of the situation or character of the place.
Among the more usual names Newton heads the list wdth 129 examples, without counting such names as Newnton or Newington, which retain a survival of the sign of the dative case. More than 300 names refer to the points of the compass, among which Sutton (73 examples) comes first, followed by Norton (65) and Weston (55). The comparative rarity of Easton (24) is explained by the fact that the A.S. East-tun usually becomes Aston (66), just as Eastled and Eastcot are now represented by Astley and Ascot. In 32 cases the A.S. Middel- tun has retained the longer form Middleton, but it frequently becomes Melton or Milton, as in the instances of Melton-Mow- bray, or Milton near Sittingbourne. Relative elevation is a common distinction, as well as relative position, Hampton (25 names) being normally from Hedntune, the ‘‘ high tun,” and Upton (33) and Overton (13) being generally the ‘‘ higher tun,” though Overton is sometimes from A.S. dfer, a ‘‘ shore.” Eaton (31) is the “ tun by the river ” (A.S. ed), Seaton (16) the tun by a lake or sea,” Marton (26) one by a mere or pool (A.S. nicer e), Marston (25) is sometimes from mceres, the genitive of mcere, or the “ tun by a marsh ” or fen (A.S. mersc), Merton (5) is the ‘‘ tun by a boundary,” Morton (36) a “ tun on or by a moor ” (A.S. mdr), and Fenton (12) by a fen. Dalton (17) is a ‘‘ tun in a dale,” Denton (16) one in a den, dean, or wooded valley, Compton (32) in a combe, Hopton (10) in a hope or recess in a hillside, Litton (6) and Letton (4) on a slope {hlith or hltd), and Halton (15) on a healh or slope. This may also be the meaning of Holton (9) when it is not a tun in a hollow. Haugh- ton (ii) is a tun on a halgh or river flat, but Houghton (24) (when not, as in South Yorkshire, from healh), as well as Hooton (4) and Hutton (33), is a tun on a hoo or projecting heel of land (A.S. hdh or hd). Clifton (21) is a tun near a cliff, Reighton on a ridge, Broughton (44), as well as Brockton (6), Brotton, and Brocton, signify a tun by a brook (A.S. Brdctun), Brunton one by a burn, Beighton (3) and Bickton (4) one by a beck. Welton (9) or Wilton (10) is by a well, and Chilton (15) by a spring.
I 517
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Ditton (8) or Deighton (6) is a tun by a dike or ditch, and Walton (25) one by a wall or bank, or occasionally by a wood {weald), but this is more often Wootton (30), while Grafton (14) is a tun by a grove. Bampton (8) is usually a tun by a tree, Acton (27) by an oak, Thornton (29) by a thorn, Ashton (28) by an ash, Appleton (12) by an apple-tree, and Brompton (12) among broom. Leighton (9) is a tun on a woodland pasturage or thicket, and Leyton usually a tun on fallow or untilled land, Felton (6) is on a plain or open field, Hatton (12) on a heath, Stretton (17) and Stratton (13) being on a street or Roman road. Frampton (10) may be the firm or strong tun, Langton (17) the long tun, Witton (17) is usually the wide tun, and Whitton the white tun. Littleton (16) is the small tun, Drayton (24) the dry tun, and Hortun (19) either the dirty tun (A.S. horu, filth) or the hoar tun (A.S. hdr, hoar, grey). Stockton (12) refers to logs, Stapleton (7) to posts, Stanton (24) to stones, Clayton (12) to clay, Gretton to grit (A.S great), Santon to sand, Garmon to grass or meadow land, and Riston to brushwood {hris). Among the commonest names are Burton (60), Barton (45), and Bolton (22). A priest must have lived at Preston (49), farm servants at Carlton (40), Charlton (29), Chorlton (8), and Plinton (27), sheep were kept at Shipton and Skipton, wethers at Hambleton, bucks or goats at Boughton, and swine at Swinton. Oxton in Cheshire (A.S. Oggodestun) is, however, from a personal name. Another curious disguise is Dutton, Cheshire, called in Domes- day Duntune, the hill tun.”
A noticeable thing about this suffix -ton, so universal in Eng- land as to have supplied the names of town and township, is that it is not found in Germany, Altona, an apparent exception, being from another source. The same is the case with the suffix -don, A.S. dun, a hill, which is undoubtedly a loan-word from the Celtic. That these suffixes tun and dun, so common in England, should be unknown in Germany, is an argument supporting a theory now in favour, that the first is a doublet of the second, but on the other hand it is difficult to understand why, if tun is derived from dun, or closely related to it, it should have a wholly different signification, agreeing with that of zaun, its phonetic equivalent in German, both meaning a place sur- rounded by a hedge, whereas dun signifies a hill, the Celtic -dunum, frequent in continental names, meaning a hill fort. The difficulty may to some extent be explained by assimilation, and as a matter of fact we find the suffixes -don and -ton are frequently interchanged with each other as well as with den and
English Village-Names 237
Stone. Thus Headington, Oxon, was Hedyndon ; Staunton, Notts, was Staundon ; Bampton, Devon, was Bedmdun ; and Bishampton, Worcestershire, was Biscopes dun, the “ bishop’s hill.” Again, Braydon, Wilts, was Braden, while Harden, Wilts, was Meredun, the ‘‘ hill by the mere.”
Next to -ton the commonest English suffix is -ham, which occurs in the names of insignificant hamlets, and even of isolated farms, as well as in those of great cities such as Birmingham, and of towns like Durham, Nottingham, Buckingham, Northampton, and Southampton, so important as to have given their names to shires or counties. The manifold difficulties which attend its discussion are shown by the fact that while the syllable -ham in Durham, Southampton, and Northampton arises from assimila- tion or corruption, it .does not represent the same Anglo-Saxon word in Cheltenham and in Nottingham. When -ham is the final syllable of a name there are two chief sources to which it can generally be referred. When the first element is a personal or family name, as in the case of Rainham, Meopham, Lewisham, Rockingham, Collingham, or Effingham, the vowel as a rule was long, and -ham represents an A.S. ham, denoting the house or ‘‘ home ” of an early settler. This corresponds to the -heim so common in Germany, as in Mannheim or Riidesheim. But when the vowel was originally short, it is from the A.S. ham, also written horn, which denotes an inclosure of some kind, and not necessarily a place of habitation. Such hams or inclosures existed at Aston as late as 1657, when mention is made of the Hayward’s Ham, the Water Steward’s Ham, the Grass Steward’s Ham, the Constable’s Ham, the Smith’s Ham, the Herd’s Ham, the Bull Ham, and the Penny Ham, most of which were garths or closes appropriated as a recompense for the services of the various village officials. In many places the reeve had a close called either ref -ham, ref-mede, or reve-lond, and in the Abingdon Chronicle certain inclosures for sheep are called sceap-ham^nas , and others for flax dixc fiax-hammas.
The two A.S. words from which the modem suffix -ham is derived were distinguished, as we have seen, by the length of the vowel. This distinction, which is marked in good early MSS., was unfortunately lost before the time of the Norman conquest, as is shown by the mention of Buckingham in the Chronicle (a.d. 918). One MS. has to Buccingahamme, where the doubled consonant shows that the vowel must have been short, while another MS. has to Buccingahdme, where the vowel is expressly marked as long. But as the names in documents
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are usually in an oblique case, the distinction can often be detected owing to the fact that ham, meaning a ‘‘ home/’ makes the genitive hames and the dative hdme, whereas ham, an “ inclosure/’ has hammes in the genitive and hamme in the dative. Among the names which the forms in early charters prove to be from ham, an ‘‘ inclosure/’ are Farnham, Surrey, A.S. cet Fearnhamme, at the inclosure among the ferns”; Cheltenham, A.S. Celtanhomme, the “ inclosure on the Chelt Culham, Oxon, A.S. Culanhom, as well as Evesham, Chippen- ham, and Twickenham. It may be noted that when ham means a ‘‘ home,” it usually occurs in combination with a family or personal name, and there appears to be no clear and certain case of ham having this signification when it is not associated with a personal name, or when it occurs as the initial or medial syllable of a word, as in the instances of Hampton, Wolver- hampton, or Carhampton, or when it stands by itself as a village- name. Thus three villages called Ham, in Kent, Sussex, and Wilts, all appear in charters in the dative case as Hamme or cet, Hamme, and Ham, in Surrey, is called Horn in a charter, which is equally significant. Another source of names in -ham is the word ham, horn, or hamm, which, unlike the other two, is feminine, making both genitive and dative in e. It means primarily the ham or knee of an animal, and seems to be also used to denote the bend or curve of a river. When in the bends of a winding river, like the Ouse near Bedford, we find a number of villages with names ending in -ham, which are hemmed in by the successive curves of the stream, there is a presumption that this may be the meaning. This may also be the case with Hampton in Middlesex, which is inclosed by a great bend of the Thames, and may perhaps be identified with a place called Homtune in a charter. Hampton in Herefordshire is also called Homtun in a charter. But -ham is often merely an assimilated form. In the names of Welham and Howsham it has arisen, as we have seen, from the assimilation of -um, the suffix of the dative plural, and in the case of Durham it is a corruption of holm. In other cases it is a corruption of the genitive singular in -an, or of -ing, the patronymic suffix, or it may be due to a river-name. On the other hand, the suffix is obscured in such cases as Cheam (A.S. Cegham) or Epsom (A.S. Ebbesham), Hampton, whether alone or in composition, is usually a corrup- tion of Hedntune, ‘‘ high tiin,” and Hampstead of Hednstede, the high place.” When we have no guidance from documents earlier than Domesday it is wiser to avoid speculation as to the
English Village-Names 239
meaning of this perplexing syllable. The A.S. hema, or h^ma (gen. pl.)^ means ‘‘ those of a hamP
The English -ion is usually replaced in Germany by hqf, a word of nearly the same meaning, which occurs, usually as hoven^ in more than 300 ancient German names. It is curious that though the Anglo-Saxons possessed the word hof, a house,’’ it should be so rare in England. We have, however. Hove in Sussex (D.B. Hov), Howden, Yorks (D.B. Hovedene), Hoveton, Norfolk (H.R. Hoveton), and other places of the same name.
From boil, an abode or house, we have the names Newbottle and Newbattle. Nobottle Hundred in Northants is a curious corruption of Neubotle, the form in the Hundred Rolls. Bead- lam, Yorkshire, formerly Bodelum (D.B. Bodlun), is from the dative plural of bdtl. Bolton, the name of twenty-two places in the northern counties, signifies a tun or inclosure containing a bdtl, or house. The eight Yorkshire Boltons are all called Bodelton in Domesday. There are two names in the south, Kimbolton in Hunts, and Chilbolton in Hants, which are apparent exceptions to the rule that Bolton is found only in the north, but the old forms show that these are both from the personal names Cynebald and Ceolbald. Bolton, Derbyshire (D.B. Boletune), may be referred to the O.N. bdl, a farm, whence also Claypole, the farm on the clay, and the name Belton. Ten places are called Newbold (D.B. Newebold), which, as well as Newbald, is explained by the A.S. bold, which means a building, usually of timber. Both well is the A.S. bdtlwela, a village or collection of houses, literally ‘‘ house wealth.”
The A.S. cot or cott denoted a thatched cottage with walls of loam or mud. It usually appears in the names of insignificant places. Draycott, Somerset (D.B. Dregcota), is the dry cottage”; Woodmancote, Hants (A.S. Wodemanecote), was a woodman’s cottage. Burcott is a doubtful name. Cotting- with, Yorkshire (D.B. Cotewid), is the wood by the cottage. As already explained, Coatham, Cottam, and Cotton are from the dative plural cotum or cottum, “ at the cottages.” Seal in Kent (A.S. Seale), Seal in Worcestershire (A.S. Sele), and probably Zeal, Devon; Seal, Surrey; Selworthy, Somerset; Selbome, Hants, and a few similar names, may be referred to the A.S. sele, a “ dwelling.” A few names, such as Chiltern and Whithorn, anciently Hwit-ern, translated Candida casa, are from the A.S. -cem or -ern, a place or habitation. Mintern, Dorset, A.S. Minterne, may have been at a place overgrown with wild mint.
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The suffix -hall, usually represented by heal in A.S. charters, and by hala or hale in Domesday, was supposed by Kemble and Leo to denote a stone house (A.S. heall, “ aula”). More recent researches have shown that it usually represents the West Saxon healh, a slope, which is the old northern hole, halch, or halgh, the source of the modern Northumbrian and Lowland Scotch haugh or hauch, locally used to denote a steep hill or bank, a meaning supported by the O.N. equivalent hallr, a hill or slope, and by an A.S. charter in which Balwineshealh is explained as petrosum clivum. Moreover, it is difficult to believe that halls or stone houses were so numerous at the time when the names were given as to account for the prevalence of this suffix, and there are many names in which hall would be an impossible translation of heal or healh. For instance, Ticknall, Derbyshire, called Ticenheal in an A.S. charter, would be the goat’s rock or slope (A.S. ticcen, a goat or kid); and Tickenall, Staffordshire, is Ticenheale in a charter. Holton, Somerset, A.S. Healhtun, and Halton, Bucks, A.S. Healtun, would be the tun on a slope; and Rushall, Yorks, was Rischale, the rushy slope. In charters healh occurs re- peatedly, as in Cymedeshealh, Puttanhealh, and Iddesheolh, which is probably Iddinshall in Cheshire. Among other names we have Ludgershall, Wilts, A.S. Lutegaresheal ; Buxhall, Suffolk, A.S. Bucyshealce and Bocceshale ; and Breadsall, Derby- shire, A.S. Bregdeshale or Breegesheal. Willenhall, Staffordshire, is called in a charter Willanhalch, the slope of Willa. Sheriff Hales in Salop is called in Domesday Halas, '' the slopes,” from holas, plural of healh, the prefix being due to its having been owned in the eleventh century by Rainold Bailgiole, Sheriff of Shropshire. From Domesday we also learn that Willingale Spain in Essex, called Ulingehala, was owned by a Norman adventurer from Spain, Hervey de Ispania, whence the distinc- tive affix. In the Yorkshire Domesday Crakehall is Crachale, Sicklinghall is Sidingale, Strensall is Strensale, Cattal is Cathale, Birdsall is Briteshala, Upsall is Upeshale, Ricall is Richale, Roall is Ruhale, and Elmsall is Ermeshala. But healh may becorre hill or ill : Picala or Pichale being now Pickhill, Wifleshale beirg now Wilsill, Snachehale being Snaygill, and Steineshale beirg now Stancill, while -hall may be from other sources, such as the A.S. scylfe, a shelf or ledge of land; Bashall, Yorks, being Based/ in Domesday. The cognate Northumbrian word haugh or haueh, which signifies a slope or plot of ground near a river, must not be confounded with heugh or heueh, another Northumbrian dialect word supposed to be cognate with hogh or hdh, which
English Village-Names 241
denotes an inland bluffy as in Keyheugh or Ratcheugh. We have Jiaugh in Hawick, in Kirkhaugh, Northumberland (formerly Kirkhalgh), in Chartershaugh on the Wear in Durham, and in Great Haughton and Little Haughton in Durham, called respectively Halctona and Halghtona in the Boldon Book. A Domesday Halctun is now Haighton in Lancashire. It is often confused with haw, the normal descendant of the West Saxon haga, genitive hagan, which signifies pasture land surrounded by a hedge, and hence a small estate, whence Hagley, Worcester- shire, A.S. Haganled ; Haworth, Yorks, D.B. Hageneworde ; Haynes, Beds, D.B. Hagenes ; and the Lincolnshire Haugh or Hough, as in Hough-on-the-Hill, D.B. Hag and Hage. Haydon, Somerset, A.S. Hcegdun ; and Higham Ferrers, Beds, A.S. Hegham, may be from hege, a hedge, or possibly from heg, hay.
At Church Minshull, Cheshire, the church was served by monks from Combermere Abbey. The name appears in a charter of 1130 as Munsculj, the “ monk’s shelf.” This suffix is often found with hardly any change, as at Raskelf, Yorkshire, Scutter- skelfe (D.B. Codrescelf), or Hunshelf (D.B. HunescelJ). Shelton and Skelton usually signify a tun on a shelf or ledge, as at Shelton, Beds, called Scelftun in a charter of 792. Shelley, Suffolk, is Scelfledge in a will of 972. But Shelf ord is either the shallow ford, or a ford with large bivalves.
The British trackway, called the Ridgeway (A.S. Hrycweg), is from the A.S. hrycg, a ‘‘ back” or “ ridge.” Petridge, Surrey, was A.S. Pedanhrycg, and Cotheridge, Worcestershire, was Coddanhrycg. The word hrycg usually becomes tic in Domesday. Thus in Dorset Kimmeridge is Cameric, Boveridge is Boveric, and Pentridge is Pentric, In Yorkshire Askrigg is Astric, the ‘‘ ash ridge,” and Reighton, near Bridlington, which stands on the escarpment of the chalk, is Rictone, the “ ridge-tun.” The A.S. die (m.), a dike, and die (f.), a ditch, are difficult to distin- guish except in the oblique cases, the genitive of the first being dices, and of the second dice, Ditcheat or Dicheat in Somerset, A.S. Dicesgat or Dichesgate, D.B. Dicesget, was a place at a gate or gap in a dike, and Deighton, Yorkshire, D.B. Distort, may be a corruption of Dicestun. Ditton and Fen Ditton in Cambridge- shire are both Dictun in charters. Dogdike, Lincolnshire, was Donnesdyk ; Ditchford, Worcestershire, was Dieford ; Wal- ditch, Dorset, is W oldie in Domesday; and Ditchampton, Wilts, was Dichcemaiun. The great earthwork in Wilts called the Wansdyke is a corruption of A.S. W odensdyk. Berwick Prior, Oxon, is a curious assimilation, appearing as Beridic in a charter.
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Walton is sometimes from Weald-tun^ the tun by the wood, but generally from weedy a wall, as at Walton, Northants, A.S. Wealtun, Several Waltons take their name from being near a wall or dyke erected for defence against enemies or the sea. Wallasea, Essex, is an island surrounded by a sea-wall or em- bankment, and at Wallbury, Essex, there is a great camp or earthwork inclosing thirty acres.
The O.N. hlidy A.S. hlithy a slope,’’ being a fertile source of Icelandic names, we should expect to find it in English topo- graphy. To this, or to the A.S. hlyt, hl^pty or hUty a lot or portion, we may refer Litton, Somerset, and Lydd, Kent, which are called respectively Hlyt-tun and HUd in charters. Litton in Derbyshire and in Yorkshire appear in Domesday as Litun and Litone, Lythe and Leatham are both Lid in D.B., Ledsham and Ledstone are Ledesham and Ledestune, and Lead is Ledy LedCy and Lied, But Ledbury, Herefordshire, is on the River Liddon, and Litton Cheney, Dorset, A.S. Lidenturiy is on the River Lidden. To hlidgeaty a swing-gate, we may refer Lidgate, Suffolk, as well as Leadgate in Durham and Cumberland, and the five places called Lydgate, and two called Lydiate.
In local names -field (K,?>,feld) does not mean a small inclosure like our present fields, but any fiat unwooded land, such as the common open field or tillage ground of a village community, or the plain of a river valley : Mansfield, for instance, being on the plain of the Maun, and Sheffield on the plain of the Sheaf. In the same neighbourhood we have Macclesfield, Chesterfield, Wakefield, Huddersfield, Lichfield, Driffield, Duffield, and Hat- field. Small inclosures, such as our present fields, went by other names, generally garth y as in Aysgarth, or acre, as in Sandiacre. A few names, such as Wetwang, Yorkshire, and Wenghale or Winghill, Lancashire, may be referred to the A.S. wang or wong, O.N. vangr, an inclosed field. More usual is the A.S. hangra, a meadow, grass plot, or village green, whence Birchanger, Essex, A.S. Birchanger ; Moggerhanger, Beds, formerly Mar- hanger, the moor-field; Clehonger, Herefordshire, and Clay- hanger in Devon, Staffordshire, and Suffolk, the last of which appears in A.S. charters as Clceghangre and Clceighangra, Ongar in Essex is called in Domesday Angra, and Aungre in a late charter. To these names we may add Tittenhanger and Pans- hanger in Herts, Ostenhanger in Kent, Goldhanger in Essex, and Shelf anger in Norfolk. The word worth or worthig denoted a small estate or plot of ground, as in the places called Hanworth. Tamworth is the estate by the River Tame; Wandsworth the
English Village-Names 243
estate on the Wandle; and Bosworth an estate with a boose or ox stall. Worthy, Hants, called Worthig in a charter, exhibits the form preserved in Woolfardisworthy, Devon. In Mercia weorthig usually becomes wardine, as Ingwardine, Shrawardine, or Wrockwardine, the ‘‘ estate near the Wrekin,’’ in Salop.
There are thirty-two places called Leigh, and others called Leighton, Leyton, Lee, and Lea, while -high, -ley, and -lea are common suffixes. They are often assimilated, but are from distinct sources. The A.S. leak (m.), genitive ledges or leas, usually found in the dative singular as led, denotes a fallow^ or lea, untilled land or pasturage, while ledh (f.), making in the
genitive and dative, is cognate with the O.H.G. I6h, a thicket, or rough woodland pasture, whence Waterloo and Hohenlohe. Local names being usually from the dative, led, dative of ledh (m.), is normally the source of the suffix -ley and such names as Leyton or Lee, wffiile ledge, dative of ledh (f.), is the source of Leigh, Leighton, and -leigh, though -ley and -leigh are often confused in modem names, -leigh lapsing into -ley : Moseley and Bradley in Worcestershire being Moseledge and Brddanldg in charters, and Bromley in Kent and Staffordshire being Brom- ledge. This is often shown by the Domesday forms : in Derby- shire Bentley being Benedlege, Bramley being Branlege, while Hanley is Henlege, Rowsley is Reuslege, and Tansley is Tanes- lege; in Yorkshire Yearsley is Everslage, Stokesley is Stocheslage, and Womersley is W timer eslege. Domesday sometimes has -lac instead of -lage, Pockley being Pochelac (in the twelfth century Speokelegh), while Helmsley is Elmeslac, Osmotherley is Asmundrelac, and Beverley is Beverlac, While ledge is represented by a Domesday lege or lage, or even by lac, led is represented by lei, lie, leie, or lai, Ripley and Stanley, for instance, being Ripelie and Stanlei. When we find -leigh in the modem name it is always from ledge. Thus Leigh-upon-Mendip, Somerset, is Ledge in a charter; Bickleigh, Devon, is A.S. Bicanledge ; Butleigh, Somerset, is A.S. Buddecleighe ; and Hadleigh, Suffolk, was Hedlckge in 972. Upper Leigh, Stafford- shire, is A.S. Lege, and Leigh, Dorset, is Lege in Domesday. In the north -leigh sometimes becomes -laugh, as at Healaugh, Yorkshire, D.B. Hailaga and Helage. In many instances -ley can be traced to an A.S. led. Thus Berkeley, Gloucestershire, is A.S. Beorcled; Wembley, Middlesex, is Wembaled ; Beckley, Sussex, is Beccanled ; and Oakley, Staffordshire, is Acled. Though Leighton is normally from Ledhtun, Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire, is commonly identified with the Lygetun of the
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Chronicle ; but as Lygetun must mean the tun on the river Lyge or Lea^ Lygetun must be Luton. Leyton, Essex, A.S. Lygeantun, is also on the Lea; and the Lygeanbyrig^ taken by Cuthwulf in 571, must be Lenbury or Lenborough, at the source of the Lea, near Buckingham. Loughton, near Epping Forest, was formerly Loketon or Luketone, probably from locu, a fold for cattle. Lees or Leese would be from the A.S. l(^s, pasture, of which the nominative plural Ichswa would give Leasow, a common name in Salop.
In the old forest districts, chiefly in the Weald of Kent, Sussex, and Hants, we find numerous names in -den^ which must have denoted woodlands suited for the pasturage of swine and goats, the number to be kept being regulated by a court called the Court of Dens. The A.S. words den (n.), dene (m.), and denu (f.), formerly believed to be loan-words from the Celtic, denoted these wooded valleys or lowlands. Hence we may explain the name of the Forest of Dean, and probably of the Forests of Bra- den and Ar-den, and several villages called Dean, all in wooded valleys. Besides Dean we have Rottingdean and Harden in Sussex, with numerous names in Kent, such as Tenterden, Cowden, Hazleden, or Romden, which appear originally to have referred to swine-pastures, answering to the Devonshire names in here or bear. In Hants we have Chidden, A.S. Cittanden, “ kite valley ” ; and Surrenden, A.S. Swithrcedingdcen. In Domesday Tincleton, Dorset, is Tincladene, evidently from a personal name; and Silsden, Yorks, is Siglesden. On the skirts of Epping Forest we find Theydon, formerly Taindena, perhaps the thane’s den. The south-eastern den is replaced in the north by the Scandinavian dale (German thaX)^ and in the south- west by combe. Thus the seventeen places called Dalton range with thirty-two called Compton and sixteen called Denton. Combe was an early loan-word from the Celtic, appearing as cwm in modem Welsh names, such as Cwm Bechan, and in Strath Clyde taking the form cum, as Cumwhitton and Cumdevock, both in Cumberland. It is not, however, confined to these districts, as we have Combe in Surrey and High Wycombe in Bucks. Winchcombe in Gloucestershire is called in a charter Wincelcumb, glossed in angulo vicus (A.S. wincel, a comer). Comb is found in Wessex charters in the eighth century, and then vanishes from English literature till 1578. A combe is usually a hollow in a hillside, and corresponds in meaning to hope, a word which takes its place in certain northern and Mercian districts. In O.N. hdp denoted a small bay or inlet, whence
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the Scotch hope, a haven, as St. Margaret’s Hope, a bay in South Ronaldshay, one of the Orkneys. Stanford-le-Hope, Essex, called The Hope by seamen, is near a bay or pool. In the Fen districts hop means a pool in a moor or marsh. Elsewhere it is a local term, probably unrelated, usually denoting a semi- circular recess in a hillside, in which sense it is very common in Weardale, Durham, and in Yarrow and Ettrick, Selkirkshire. In Yarrow almost every farmhouse is sheltered in a recess or hollow of the hills, and the names in -hope are correspondingly numerous, as, for instance, Kirkhope, Dryhope, Whitehope, Levinshope, Sundhope, Bowerhope, and Ladhope, more than twenty in all. In Upper Weardale, Durham, we find another cluster of these names, such as Stanhope, Bumhope, Westen- hope, Wellhope, Harthope, Swinhope, Rockhope, and Bollehope, the meaning of which is mostly transparent, though the names are sometimes disguised, as at Ryhope, Durham, which appears in the Boldon Book as Ref hope, probably the “ reeves hope.” At Cassop, Durham, called Cazhope in the Boldon Book, we find the change from -hope to -op, which is usual in Mercia. Ratlinghope, Salop, preserves the older form, but the contracted form is seen in Alsop, Derbyshire, D.B. Elleshope, which contains the same personal name which we have in Ellesmere. Heslop and Glossop in Derbyshire, Worksop in Notts, and Middop in Yorkshire appear in Domesday as Hetesope, Glosop, Werchesope, and Mithope, Skellingthorpe in Lincolnshire (D.B. Scheldine- hope) has been assimilated to the neighbouring names in -thorpe. An outlying name of the same class is Gattertop, Herefordshire, a corruption of Gutter ede-hope. To the same source we may refer the ten places which go by the name of Hopton.
The suffix -gale, like -hope, denotes a place in the hollow of a hill. It is the Scotch gill and the O.N. geil, pronounced gale. It is common in the Lake District, where it denotes a ravine or narrow lane, as Buttergill or Ormsgill. Fingal in Yorkshire (D.B. Finegala and Finegal) may be the woodpecker’s hollow {fina, a woodpecker). In some cases, however, such as Repin- gale, Lincolnshire, called Repinghale in Domesday, Boningale in Salop, or Edingale in Staffordshire, the suffix is more probably from heath, a slope.
It is difficult to determine the meaning of the suffix -wick or -wich, which may be from the A.S. wic, a “ dwelling-place,” cognate with the Latin vicus, or from wic, a bay, as in the case of Sandwich, Kent, appropriately named the sandy bay.” Alnwick was the dwelling on the Ain, Berwick the dwelling on
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the hill, and Norwich the northern dwelling. Greenwich, A.S. Grene-wic, may be the green dwelling-place, or may refer to a bay or reach of the Thames, the name Woolwich, called Wide- wic in a charter, referring to the adjacent reach. Wick in Dorset and Worcestershire are called Wic in charters, and Wick Episcopi in Worcestershire was Wican^ while Wickford in Essex and Worcestershire were Wicford, There are twenty-one places called Hardwick, usually from heorde, a herd or flock. Thus Hardwick in Northants and in Warwickshire are called Heordewic in charters, and in the Boldon Book Hardwick, Durham, is Herde- wyk, the station or abode of the herd. In a charter the word wic is glossed mariscus, a “ marsh,” but the corresponding modem names are difficult to distinguish. Sometimes the nature of the ground may determine the meaning, as in the case of Wykeham in the North Riding, which stands on the edge of an old morass.
Thorj>e, the distinctive Danish designation of a township or a hamlet, corresponds to the O.H.G. dorp, now dorf, and is cognate with the Gaelic tref, Irish treh, Breton trev, and Welsh tre, a dwelling, and with the Latin tribus, appearing also in A-treb-ates and other Celtic tribe-names. It is common in the Danish shires of York, Lincoln, Nottingham, Derby, Northampton, Norfolk, and Suffolk. The prefix is frequently a personal name, as in Langthorpe, Yorks (D.B. Lambetorp), Haisthorpe (D.B. Aschil- torp), Tholthorpe (D.B. Turulfestorp), and Kettlethorpe. Places appearing simply as Torp in Domesday have usually acquired a distinctive suffix, generally from the name of a later owner, as Thorpe Bassett, Thorpe Buhner, Thorpe Arch, Thorpe Mande- ville, and Thorpe Abbots, or from the patron saint, as Thorpe Constantine, or from situation, as Thorpe By-Water, Thorpe- in-Balne, Thorpe-in-the-Street, Thorpe-on-the-Hill, Thorpe Underwood, or Thorpe-sub-Montem.
The commonest Scandinavian suffix, notably in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, is -by, as in the names Kirby, Whitby, or Grimsby. It is the O.N. beer, beer, or byr, Norwegian bo, Swedish and Danish by, from the root bua, to dwell, whence bu, a house. It originally denoted a building or dwelling, then a farmstead, and afterwards a village or town. Some names show that it was applied to a single house or hut. Thus Skidby, Yorkshire (D.B. Schitebi), must have denoted a log hut, or a building constructed of shingles or split wood (A.S. scide, O.N. skid, a billet of wood).
The suffix -thwaite is characteristic of the districts settled by
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the Norwegians rather than by the Danes. It is common in Norway in the form -ihweit. The root is seen in the A.S. • thwitan, ‘‘ to chop.’’ The Frisian tved means a place cleared of wood^ and this seems to have been the original signification of ihwaite in England^ though the O.N. thveit denotes an outlying cottage with its paddock. This suffix occurs chiefly in the Lake District, being found more than a hundred times in Cumberland alone, as Thomthwaite, Thomythwaite, Apple- thwaite, Rosthwaite, Finsthwaite, Smaithwaite, Shoulthwaite, Satterthwaite, Legberthwaite, Ormathwaite, and Langthwaite. These thwaites are mostly on high ground, and apparently denoted “ clearings ” on the Fells. The Norwegian colony extended into the adjacent parts of Yorkshire, where we have Gristhwaite, Staithwaite, Folithwaite, and Braithwaite. Else- where the word is rare, but there are two places in Norfolk and one in Suffolk called Thwaite, and a Thwaite Hall in Lincolnshire.
The suffix -ville, so common in France, does not seem to have been introduced into England, names apparently containing it being really from other sources. Thus Cheney Longville in Salop is an assimilated form from Langefeld, the “ long field,” with a prefix derived from the Cheney family, who in the fourteenth century owned the manor. Yeovil in Somerset is the modem form of Givel, the name of the river on which it stands. Melville and a few other names are attributed to Norman adventurers.
Villages must not be regarded as coming into existence as villages, but rather as townships gradually growing up round the tun or dwelling of the first settler, whose abode either bore the owner’s name, or was distinguished by some local charac- teristic, such as position, colour, form, or frequently from some neighbouring natural object, a cliff, a brook, a wood, or fre- quently from the tree which shaded it. Trees of peculiar formation may account for such village-names as Tiptree in Essex, Heavitree in Devon, Wavertree in Lancashire, Picktree in Durham, and Harptree in Somerset, while Bartestree, Flereford- shire, A.S. Bartholdestreu, Austry, Warwickshire, A.S. Adulfes- treowy “ Ealdulf’s tree,” and Manningtree in Essex are plainly from personal names. The A.S. tred or tredw gives tree in modern English, just as cnedw gives knee. But in local names we have such abraded forms as Austry, Coventry, and Oswestry, or archaic spellings, such as Toltingtrough in Kent, Gostrow in Sussex, Oaktrow (D.B. Wochitreu) in Somerset, where also we
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find such names as Hallatrow and Wanstrow. Sometimes tred becomes der, dur, or dore, as in the case of Mappowder, Dorset, a curious form which represents an older Mapulder (D.B. Mapledre), the maple-tree.” Mapperton or Maplerton in Dorset, and Maperton in Somerset, are the A.S. Mapelder- tun (D.B. Mapledr e-tone), the tun by the maple-tree, and Mapledurham, Oxon, is the A.S. Mapulderham, “ Maple-tree- ham,” like Appledurcombe in the Isle of Wight, which is the Appletree combe. A place in Kent, called in the Chronicle cet Apuldre, ‘‘ at the apple-tree,” afterwards became Apulder or Apolder, the “ apple-tree,” and is now Appledore. Appledram, Sussex, is a corruption of Appelder-ham, and Salterford, Notts, D.B. Saltreford, must be the ford at the sallow-tree (A.S. sealh, a sallow). Hills and other natural features of the land were often named from trees, as in the case of such names as Onetree- hill, Sevenoaks, or Fourashes. A.S. charters show that Bamp- ton, Devon, was Bedmdun, “ the tree hill,” and that Benfleet, Essex, was Bedm-fledt, tree creek.”
From ellen, the elder-tree, we have Allington, Wilts, A.S. Ellendun, “ elder-tree hill.” In the north of England it is called the baw-tree or burtree, which has locally become buttery.” Butterley in Salop, called in Domesday Butrelie, is probably the elder-tree pasture, and a single elder-tree may have given a name to Bawtry, Yorkshire, formerly Bautre, Butterwick, a township in the East Riding, called Butrvid in Domesday, is evidently Buirtre-vidr, or “ elder-tree wood ” (O.N. vidr, a wood). Butterwick in Lincolnshire and in the North Riding, both called Butrvic in Domesday, may, however, be from the proper name Buttr or Budar, or from bud, a booth or hut. The name of Buttermere in Westmoreland is also ambiguous.
The ash appears oftenest in local names. Some two hundred places are called Ashton, Ashby, Ashstead, Ashworth, Ashwick, Ashcot, and the like. Askrigg, D.B. Ascric, is a northern form answering to the southern Ashridge, Asquith, D.B. Askvid, is the Ash-wood, and Askham, D.B. Ascam, ‘‘ at the ashes,” appears to be a dative plural. Ashmansworth, Hants, is a corruption of Mscmeresweorth, either from a personal name, or the estate by the ash-tree mere. Ashton must not be con- founded with Aston, which is usually the East tun. An isolated ash, which forms a sort of landmark in English history, must have crowned the summit of the Ridgeway in Berks, since Ashdown, A.S. Msces-dun, the hill of the ash-tree,” was the spot where Alfred and Ethelred gained their first victory over
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the Danes. If not from the personal name ^sc, isolated ashes may also have given names to Ashton in Wilts and Ashbury, Berks, called in charters Asces-dun and Msces-hyrig.
The oak and the thorn are nearly as common in local names as the ash. There are twenty-seven places called Acton, twenty- nine called Thornton, and twenty-eight called Ashton. Ockley in Surrey and Oakley in Hants appear in A.S. documents as Acledh or Aclea, the “ oak lea,” and the curious name of Ugley in Essex appears to be a corruption of Oakley or Ockley. In D.B. Aughton, Yorkshire, is Actun, Oakford, Dorset, is Acford, and Oakover, Staffordshire, is the A.S. Acofre, the oak bank. Notable thorns appear at two places called Cawthome, the leafless or callow thorn ” ; and at Cropthome, Worcestershire, A.S. Cropponthorn, and Glapthome, Northants, A.S. Glapthorn, were thorns with bunches or burrs. Hatherton in Staffordshire is the A.S. Haguthorndun, hawthorn hill.” Thornton is a name as common as Acton. There are sixteen in Yorkshire, all called Torentun in Domesday. Several places are called Thombury, Thomborough, and Thornbrough, which usually appear in old records as Thorneherghy “ thorn hill.” Thomford in Dorset and Thomhaugh in Northants are also from the thorn. Thomholme in Yorks is Thirnon in Domesday, evidently a corruption of the dative plural Thyrnum, “ at the thorns.”
We find the elm at Elm, Cambridgeshire, A.S. Mlm; at Elmley, Worcestershire, A.S. Elmledh; at Elmham, Norfolk, A.S. Elmham; but such names are rare. Much more common is the birch, which gives names to more than fifty places, as Berkeley, Gloucestershire, A.S. Beorcled and Bercled, or Bark- ham, Berks, A.S. Beorcham. Birkin, Yorkshire, D.B. Berckige, is the ‘‘ birch isle.” Lindridge, Worcestershire, A.S. Lindrycg, may be from the lime-tree, but Linton in Gloucestershire and Cambridgeshire, both called Lintun in A.S. charters, Lindon, Dorset, A.S. Lindun, and Lincomb, Worcestershire, A.S. Lin- cumb, are from Zm, flax. Apps, Surrey, is the A.S. Mpse, the aspen,” and Apsley Guise, Beds, and Apsley, Surrey, are from the same tree. An alder (A.S. aZr, gen. alres), must have grown at Alresford, Hants, A.S. Alrford and Alresford, while Ellerton, Yorks, D.B. Elreton, is explained by the O.N. elri, an erle or alder-tree. From the maple, in addition to Mappowder, Mapledurham, and Mapperton, already mentioned, we have Maplebeck in Notts; Maplestead, Essex, A.S. Mapiilderstede, maple-tree place”; and Mapleborough, Warwickshire, A.S. Mapelesharwe, which was a barrow with a maple-tree. The
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apple-tree is a fertile source of names, such as Appleton, Appleby, Applethwaite, and Applegarth. Eppleby was anciently Apelby. Appletree Hundred in Derbyshire is called Apelireu in Domesday. Plumtree Hundred in Notts is a similar name, and Plumstead, Kent, is A.S. Plumstede. From the pear, A.S. pirige, we have Pirtun, Worcestershire, and Parton, Wilts, both called Pirigtun in charters. Purfleet, Essex, was Pirigiiedt, and Pirbright, Surrey, was Pirifrith, The scarcity of names referring to the pine or the fir bears out, to some extent, Caesar's assertion as to its absence from Britain, the few existing names being chiefly confined to the northern region, which was not visited by Caesar. The A.S. gyr or gyrtredw, a fir-tree, explains Gartree Hundred in Leicestershire, and the lost Wapentake of Gartree in Lincolnshire (formerly Gayrtree, Geyrtree, and Gairtree). We have also a Garford in Berks, with Garforth and Gargrave (D.B. Gereford and Geregrave) in Yorkshire. Sefton may be from scBppe, fir. We find the hazel at Haslemere, Surrey, A.S. Heselmceresgraf, hazel mere grove," and at Haselbury-Bryan, Dorset, A.S. Heselberi. Nuthurst, Warwickshire, was Hnuthyrst, but Nutford, Dorset, and Nutbourne, Sussex, are assimilated names, as appears from the Domesday forms Nortforde and Nordborne, while Notgrove, Gloucestershire, is the A.S. Ncetan grdfas and Natan grafum. Widford, Gloucestershire, A.S. Withigford; Withy combe, Somerset, A.S. Withicumb; and Widley, Hants, A.S. Withigled, are from the A.S. withige or withie, a willow or osier, but without ancient forms such names are doubtful, many being from wid, wide, or hwit^ white, or from personal names, such as Willoughby from Willa, or Willerby from Wilgard.
Broom, heather, fern, sedge, grass, and rushes, are the source of names like Bromley, Hatley, Farnley, Sedgeley, Bentley, which denoted rough pastures overgrown with such vegeta- tion. Bromley, a common name, is Bromledge or Brdmled in charters, and there are twelve places called Brompton. To the A.S. hcEthy heath, we may refer twelve places called Hatfield, A.S. Hceihfeld, Hadleigh is PLcethledge, and Hatton, Hadley, or Hatley are common names. Some forty places take their names from fern; among them Farleigh, A.S. Fearnledge ; Famdon, A.S. Fearndun; Farnborough and Farmborough, A.S. Fearnbeorh. Farnham, Surrey, called Fearnhamme in 893, is the inclosure in the fern, but Farnsfield, Notts, D.B. Franesfeld, must be from the personal name Fraene. Brackenholm and Brechenbrough in Yorkshire, formerly Bracheneholm and
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Brachenbergh, are from braccan, nom. pi. of bracce, fern or bracken^ Linghcesej as Hayes, Middlesex, is called in a charter, shows that the O.N. word ling^ heather, must have existed in A.S. Of the fourteen places called Bentley, four appear in charters as Beonetledge, and others in Domesday as Benedlage, signifying pastures overgrown with bents or bennet grass (A.S. beonet). From the A.S. gcBts, grass, or from gcerstun, a grass meadow,, we have several places called Gars ton and Garsdon, A.S. Gar stun and Gersdun, Turvey, Beds, D.B. Torveia^ would mean the turf isle. Rushmere, Rusholme, and Rushden may be referreti to the A.S. risCj a rush, and Rushall, Staffordshire, A.S. Hris- chalh, would be the rushy slope, or, like Princes Risborough, Bucks, A.S. Hrisbeorhy may be from the O.N. hris, brushwood. Crowle, Worcestershire, A.S. Crohled, is from croh, meadow saffron; Minety, Wilts, A.S. Mintig, is the ‘‘mint isle’’; and Humbleyard Hundred, Norfolk (H.R. Humilyerd) is from earth overgrown with bindweed (A.S. hymele), whence also Himbleton, Worcestershire, A.S. Hymeltun, We have nettles at Nettle- stead, Kent, A.S. Netlesstede; and at Netswell, Essex, A.S. Nethleswel. Names from reeds are common, as Redmarley, Worcestershire, A.S. Reddmcereley ; Rodbourne, Wilts, A.S. Reddburne ; and Redbridge, Hants, A.S. Reodford. Soham, near Cambridge, A.S. Scegham, is appropriately named from sedge, as well as Sedgley, Staffordshire ; Sedgeberrow, Worcester- shire; and Sedgmoor, Somerset. Wedmore, Somerset, A.S. Weddmor ; Weedon, in Bucks and Northants, A.S. Weddun; and many more are explained by the A.S. wedd^ herb,. grass, or weed.
Wootton is generally from the A.S. Wudutun, the tun by the wood. In Theydon Bois the affix may be Norman French, but Warboys, Hants, is A.S. W at debusc. The suffix -hurst is very common in the Weald of Kent and Sussex, as Midhurst, Maple- hurst, or Lamberhurst. The A.S. grdf, a grove, must be dis- tinguished from grcEf, a grave or ditch. Thus Broomsgrove, Worcestershire, is A.S. Bremesgrdfan ; Notgrove, Gloucester- shire, is Ncetangrdfas; Boxgrove, Sussex, is Bosgrave in Domes- day; while Mulgrave, Yorks, is Grif m Domesday; Falsgrave is Wallesgrif, and Stonegrave is Stanegrif, There are several villages called Holt, from the A.S. holt^ a “ wood,” which is not uncommon in charters. Part of Bere forest is called Alice holt. Bagshot in Windsor forest, like Aldershot and Oakshot in the great Andred forest, may also be from holt, which in Belgium becomes hot and boat. But since Whap-
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shot^ Surrey, is Wopshete in a charter, and Bramshott, Lud- shot, and Empshot are Brambresete, Lidesete, and Hibesetc in Domesday, apparently from sedta, sedta^ or sHa^ plural forms of sedtu^ meaning open commons or cattle pastures, it is not impossible that the names may have been assimilated, Alders- holt and Oaksholt, on the one hand, and Brembresete and Lidesete, on the other, having lapsed into the common forms Aldershot, Oakshot, Bramshott, and Ludshot. Northolt, Middlesex, is not the North holt, but the North kealh or slope, as appears from the Domesday form Northala. Monksilver, Somerset, called Selva in Domesday, may be from the Latin silva.
From animals two counties, Oxfordshire and Hertfordshire, and an important town, Gateshead, derive their names. There are many names of the same class, some bearing witness to the former existence of animals now extinct. Barbourne, Worcester- shire, called Beferburn in a charter of 904, and Bevere, near Worcester, formerly Beverie, the beaver isle, besides Beverley, Yorkshire, testify to the diffusion of the beaver. The wild boar is found at Yearsley, Yorks (D.B. Everslage); Eversley, Hants (A.S. Eversled); Everleigh, Wilts (A.S. Eburledge); Evredon, near Daventry, called Eferdune in 944; Evercreech, Somerset, A.S. Evercric, the “ boar’s creek”; and Eversholt, Beds, D.B. Evreshot, ‘‘ the boar’s wood.” The existence of the elk, called ealh in the southern, and elch in the northern dialect, has been inferred from the name of Alkborough, Lincolnshire, called Alke- barue^ “ elk-wood,” in a charter, and Elksley, Notts (D.B. Elches- leig). On a river island, near Winchester, called Wolvesey, the Welsh in the reign of Edgar had to deposit their annual tribute of wolyes’ heads. Woolpit, Suffolk, is one of several places called Wulfpyt or Wulpit in charters, and two charters mention wolf- pits as existing at Wolley, anciently Wolfelay, the “ wolf field,” in Yorkshire. Woolstone, Ulverstone, and Woolhead in Lanca- shire may also be referred to the wolf, the last being a name of the same class as Gateshead. Similar names, which are not un- common, may have originated in the practice of erecting on a post the head of some animal as a boundary mark or a tribal emblem. The curious name Thickhead (A.S. Tykenheved) means the kid’s head (A.S. ticcen, a kid), and Consett in Durham, called in the Boldon Book Conekesheved, is the coney’s or rabbit’s head. Farcet, Hunts, called Fearresheafod in a charter and Faresheved in the Hundred Rolls, is the bull’s head, to which we may add Osnead and Neatishead in Norfolk, Hartshead in Lancashire and Yorkshire, Sheepshead in Leicestershire, Swines-
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head in Lincolnshire, called Swineshedfod in a charter, and a Swineshead Hundred in Gloucestershire (H.R. Swinesheved). The name Swineshead occurs also in Worcestershire and Hants.
The A.S. stdd, a stud, or herd of horses, whence stddfald, a horse-fold, explains the name of Stotfold in Beds and Yorkshire (D.B. Stodfald), as well as Stottesden, Salop. Studley in Oxon, Wilts, and Warwickshire, and Studley Royal and Studley Roger in Yorks were ‘‘ stud pastures.” Studham in Beds, called Stodham in a charter of Oswulf, with Stutton in Suffolk and Yorkshire (D.B. Stutune) were inclosures for horses, or possibly from the A.S. studu, a post or pillar. Fawley, Hants, A.S. Falethledj was a pasture containing a cattle fold, but Fawley, Herefordshire, A.S. Fceliglceh, is the yellow, or fallow lea,” and Fawsley, Northants, A.S. Fealuwesled, is the lea of the fallow (A.S. fealwes, genitive of fealu, fallow ground).
One of the commonest elements in English names is stead (A.S. stede), which means simply a place.” There are 1200 names in stede to be found in Kemble’s collection of charters. It answers to the German stadt, which originally meant a place, but has now come to signify a town. Some of the Hampsteads may denote a ‘‘ homestead,” but Hampstead, Middlesex, formerly Hedmstede, is probably from the dative hedn-stede,
at the high place.” Greenstead, Essex, A.S. Grenstede, is the ‘‘ green place,” and Ringstead, Norfolk, A.S. Ringstede, was a place inclosed by a ring. Felsted, Essex, anciently Feldested, is the place in the field or open country, and Stisted, Essex, was Stigestede, a place with a stig, either a path, or perhaps a sty or wooden inclosure. The A.S. stow also meant a ‘‘place”; it then came to signify a dwelling-place, and ultimately a town, like the German stadt. Ely, for instance, was called a stow. The word stoc or stoc, which has now become Stoke, is used almost interchangeably with stow, which is possibly only a weak form of stoc. The primary meaning of stoc seems to have been a stem or stump of a tree, a stock, log, or stake. Possibly stoc may have been originally used to denote a place near the stump of a tree in a half-cleared forest. In addition to seventy places called Stoke, some of which appear in charters as Stoc, we have Basingstoke and Tavistock (A.S. Tafingstoc). Stockwith in Notts and Lincolnshire seemingly denoted a wood where the stumps were left standing. Stokesley, Yorkshire (D.B. Stoches- lage), was probably a pasture containing such a stump. One of the twelve places called Stockton appears in a charter as Stoctun, meaning either a tun near a stump, or an inclosure
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formed of logs; Stockbridge, Hants, being a plank bridge or bridge of logs, and Stalbridge, Dorset (D.B. Staplebrige), a trestle bridge. Besides stoc and stapul, there are a few words of the same class, as studu^ a post or pillar, dative styde, whence the word studded, which means literally set with posts.’' This may explain the names of Great Stukeley, Hunts, called Stivec- ledh in a charter, of two places in Yorkshire called Steeton,^ of Stewton in Lincolnshire, and Stittenham, Yorkshire, in Domes- day Stidnun, From swer or swir^ a column or pillar, we have Swyre, Dorset, A.S. Sueire, D.B. Suere, To sceaftes, genitive of sceafty a pole, or the shaft of a spear, we may refer Shaftesbury, Dorset, called Sceaftesbyrig in the Chronicle. Stickford, Lincoln- shire, D.B. Stichesforde, is explained by the O.N. stik, a pile or stick, and Stixwold, Lincolnshire, would be a field (vbllr) marked by a post. To the A.S. pil, a stake, whence the word pile, or to pill, a local variant of pool, we may refer Pilton, Somerset, A.S. Piltun, and other places called Pilton; and from pal, whence pale and pole, we have Palgrave, Suffolk, A.S. Palegraf,
Names like Huntroyd and Ormerod may be explained by a northern dialect-word, which in the Huddersfield glossary is said to signify a clearing in a forest, corresponding to the Swale- dale word ridding, which we have in the name Ben Rhydding, a hydropathic establishment at Ilkley, so called because it was erected on a piece of ground called in the title deeds ‘‘ the bean ridding.” The O.N. ruth or rud means a clearing in a wood, and in Hesse, the Hartz, and other German forest districts, names in rent, ried, and rode are numerous, signifying forest clearings, or places where the trees have been “ rooted ” out. Routh, in Holderness, D.B. Rule and RiUha, may have been such a clearing. In German names slad also denotes a forest clearing, probably cognate with the A.S. slced or sled, which is very common in charters, and survives as a dialect-word in the form slade, which usually means a strip of green sward between two woods, or between two breadths of ploughland, and is also used to denote strips of marshy ground in valley bottoms, also a valley or strath. In A.S. charters we have Wulfslcede, Barfod- slced, Fearnhylles slced, as well as Fearnslced, Worcestershire, and Fugelsled in Hants, none of which have been identified. Among modem names we have Slade in Gloucestershire, Waterslade in Somerset, and in Yorkshire, Slaidbum (D.B. Slateborne), Slaith- waite, and Sledmere (D.B. Slidemare), Sleights may be from the O.N. slettr, level. Snaith, in Yorkshire, called Esnaid in Domes- day, may be referred to the A.S. snkd, or sndd, which seems to
English Village-Names 255
have denoted a portion of land, usually a clearing in a forest, of defined limits, but unfenced, the boundaries being marked by incisions on trees (A.S. snithan, to cut or prune trees). A charter of 822 mentions a Snadhyrst, near Kemsing, in Kent, which seems to have been a portion of a larger wood. Whip- snade, a royal manor in Bedfordshire, is a corruption of Wibba- snade, and we know that Wibba, King of the Mercians, had a palace at Berkhamstead, two or three miles distant. The word frithy which is not uncommon in field-names, and also occurs in village-names, is derived immediately from the A.S. firth or fyrth, supposed to have meant a forest or sheep-walk, which is the meaning of the Welsh loan-word or fryddy pronounced frith. Chapel-en-le-Frith, Derbyshire, is the Chapel in the Forest, a name analogous to that of Kirby Frith in Leicester- shire. There is a township called Frith in the Parish of Forest, Durham, and a place called Fritham in the New Forest, a Frithstock or Frithilstock in Devon, and Frith- with- Wrenbury in Yorkshire. Holmfirth, in the West Riding, is the Forest on the River Holme. In the Craven dialect the word frith is still vernacular, signifying a tract inclosed from the mountain, usually for a plantation or woodland.
Such Celtic names as survived the Teutonic conquest are those of conspicuous hills^ like Helvellyn or the Wrekin, fragments of the Celto-Roman names of important cities, as Winchester or Gloucester^ or the names of large rivers like the Severn, the Thames, or the Avon. So far as any elements in our village- names can be referred to Celtic speech, it is usually because these Celtic river-names were incorporated by the Teutonic invaders into the names they gave to their own settlements : Tam worth, for instance, being the estate on the Tame, and Mansfield the plain beside the Maun. When a town or a village bears the name of a river, pure and simple, it is usually due to some portion of an earlier compound having disappeared. Thus the proper name of Hull is Kingston-upon-Hull, and Frome was formerly Minster-on-Frome. Thame was cet Tame or Tamu- villa y Neath was ad Nidumy the station where the Roman road crossed the Neath. Such Roman names usually exhibit the suffix ceasteYy Lancaster being on the Lune, Ribchester on the Ribble, Towcester on the Tove, Brancaster on the Bran, Grant- chester on the Granta, Alcester on the Alne, Colchester on the Colne, Doncaster on the Don, Exeter on the Exe. In many cases the modern name is derived not directly from the river- name but from the Roman town or station on the river, Ciren-
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256
cester being from Corinium, the town on the Corin^ now the Churn, and not immediately from the river.
In Devon and other south-western counties, owing probably to the more gradual character of the Saxon conquest, the Celtic names of the rivers must have become known to the invaders before the settlements on their banks were made, and conse- quently the village-names are derived, more frequently than elsewhere, from the names of the rivers on which they stand. In Devon we have Plymton, Plymstock, and Plymouth on the Plym; Teignton and Teignmouth on the Teign; Dartington and Dartmouth on the Dart; Tavy and Tavistock on the Tavy; Torrington on the Torridge; Otterton and Ottery on the Otter; Culmstock, Cullompton, and Culm on the Colomb; Crediton on the Crede; Colyton on the Coly; Ermington on the Erme; Yealmpton on the Yealme; Walkhampton on the Walcomb; Tamerton on the Tamar; Tawton and Tawstock on the Taw; Sidbury and Sidmouth on the Sid; six Clists on the Clist; as well as five names from the Exe and two from the Axe. In Dorset seven villages take their names from the Piddle, eight from the Tarrant, three from the Cerne, and two from the Iwerne. In Somerset there are three from the Parret; Taunton is on the Tone; Chewton and Chew on the Chew; Ilchester, Ilminster, Yeovilton, and Yeovil on the Ivel; and Frome on the Frome. In Gloucestershire four places are named from the Churn, three from the Coin, two from the Leche, and Chelten- ham is on the Chelt. Elsewhere we have Wilton on the Willy; Ledbury on the Liddon; Sturminster on the Stour; Char- minster and Charmouth on the Char; Kintbury on the Kennet; with two Leamingtons on the Learn; Itchington on the Itchen; Lenton on the Leen; Tenbury on the Teme; Coleshull or Coleshill on the Cole. In Surrey we have Weybridge, Wands- worth, and Molesey; in Kent, Maidstone, Tunbridge, Dartford, Darenth, Lenham, and Crayford; in Essex, Chelmsford, Col- chester, and Stortford, with Panfield on the Blackwater, formerly the Panta; in Suffolk, Yarmouth, Aldeburgh, and Orford; in Norfolk, Thetford, Lackford, and Narborough; in Lincolnshire, Louth (D.B. Ludes) is on the Lud, Sleaford on the Slea, and Market Rasen on the Rase. In the north there are a few well- known names from rivers, such as Sheffield, Rotherham, Mans- field, Rochdale, Kendal, and Alnwick.
The names of the larger rivers are, as a rule, of Celtic origin, only the smaller streams bearing Teutonic names, usually from brdc, a brook; burne or brmi, properly a rapid stream^or torrent;
English Village-Names 257
a beck; a channel ; nZ/z or a runlet; a creek;
and iiedt, a flow of water, often a tidal flow. From these words we obtain many village-names, since settlements were made where water was procurable. Of the forty-four places called Broughton, a large number are proved by documents to be from Broctun, the tun by the brook,” whence also Brotton in York- shire, and several places called Brockton and Broxton, while Cornbrough is Corlebroc in Domesday, and Greasbrough is Gersebroc. From burne or hrun we have Bourn, Lincolnshire, D.B. Brune, and Nunbumholme, Yorkshire, D.B. Brunham, Sherbourne, Sherburn, or Shirburn (A.S. Sciraburne), is the clear or bright burn; Woburn in Wilts, and Wobourn in Surrey, are both Wdburne in charters (A.S. wo or woh, bent, crooked). Woburn in Beds and Bucks, and Oborne, Dorset (D.B. Woe- burne), are doubtless the same name. Winterbourn (A.S. Winterburne) is a common name, denoting streams which are dry in summer. Washboume, Gloucestershire and Worcester- shire, are W assanburne and Wasseburne in charters (A.S. wase, dirt, mud). From bee, a beck, we have Beighton, Derbyshire, A.S. Beetun ; Burbage, A.S. Burhbeea ; several Beckleys, the Yorkshire Sandbeck, and the Mercian Sandbach and Comber- batch. Evercreech, Somerset, is the boar’s creek,” from erie, a creek, whence Creech in Somerset and Derbyshire (D.B. Crie or Criee). Crixea, Essex, anciently Crixheth and Kryxhithe, is the landing-place in a creek, and Cricklade, Wilts, was the A.S. Creeea-geldde, where geldd signifies a collection of lodes or water- courses, from Idd, a lode or channel, whence Evenlode, Whaplode, and Lechlade. * Linchlade (A.S. Hlinegeldd) is from Mine, a bank. From the A.S. rith or rithe, a small stream, which still survives as a dialect-word, we have Childrey, A.S. Cillarith, and Letherhead, A.S. Leodrith. Shottery, near Stratford-on- Avon, where Shakespearean pilgrims go to see Ann Hathaway’s cottage, is called in a charter Seotta-rith, which might be the ‘‘ trout-beck,” seedta meaning a small trout, now called a shot or shote in some local dialects, or the ‘‘ quick stream,” from seedt, quick. Hendred, Berks, was Hennarith, a stream frequented by water-hens (A.S. henna), and Eelrithe by eels. From the A.S. fledt or fliet, which signifies a place where vessels can float, and hence an estuary, tidal inlet, bay, channel, or running stream, we have Northfleet, Souttifleet, and Purfleet on the Thames, and half a dozen villages called Fleet. Fleet Street obtained its name from the navigable tidal portion of the Holborn. Swinefleet, near Goole, and Adlingfleet (D.B.
258 Words and Places
Adelinges fluet), a few miles lower down at the old mouth of the Don, are inlets which sheltered the ships of Sweine and Edgar the Atheling while their armies marched inland and took York.
Names from wells are extremely numerous. We have the town of Wells in Norfolk, and the city of Wells in Somerset, the latter being translated Fontanetum in an early Latin charter. In Domesday, Wool, Dorset, is Welle, “ at the well Welham, Yorkshire, is Wellun (dative plural), ‘‘ at the wells Welton, Yorkshire, is Welleton ; Warmwell, Dorset, is Warmewelle, “ at the warm weir'; and Caldwell, Yorkshire, is Caldewelle, “at the cold well." There are eight places called Brad well, the “ broad well," the variant form Braithwell appearing as Brade- welle in Domesday. In A.S. charters Whitwell, Derbyshire, is called cet Hwiiewylle, “ at the white well "; Brightwell, Oxon, is Beortanwyle, and Brightwell, Berks, is cet Brihtanwylle, both meaning “ at the bright well "; Banwell, Somerset, is Banan- wyl ; Runwell, Essex, is Runawell, the magic or secret well; Barwell, Leicestershire, is Barwell, the bare well; and Chigwell, Essex, is Cingwelle. Wells were also named from their shapes. Thus Wherwell, Hants, A.S. Hwcerwelle and Hwerwillon, is explained by the A.S. hwer, an ewer or kettle, and is equivalent to Kettlewell, Yorkshire, or Potwell, Hants. Holwell, Beds, A.S. Holewel, and Holwell, in Dorset and Devon, A.S. Holanwyl, are from holan, genitive of hole, a hole; and Cromwell is the “ crooked well." Hordle, Hants, A.S. Hordwelle, and Hord- well, Berks, A.S. Hordwyl, denote wells holding a horde or store of water. Feltwell, Norfolk, A.S. Feltwell, may be the well in the field; Woldswell, Gloucestershire, A.S. Wcddeswel, the well in the wood; and Saltwell, Worcestershire, A.S. Saltwell, the salt well. Bakewell, Derbyshire, A.S. Badecan wiellan, is from a personal name.
The A.S. word cyle also signifies a well, whence Yarkhill in Herefordshire, a curious corruption of the A.S. Geard-cylle. Kildwick Percy in the East Riding is in Domesday Chilwic or Chillewinc, probably the dwelling by the well ; and Kilham, also in the East Riding, where the River Hull rises from springs in the chalk wolds, is called in Domesday Chillun, and after- wards Kyllum and Killum, apparently the dative plural cylum, “ at the springs." The word held, which denotes in northern English a gathering of water bursting forth in a strong stream from a hillside, is from the O.N. kelda, or the A.S. celd, genitive celdes, dative celde. Hence the name of the Halikeld Wapen- take in the North Riding, so called from the village of Hallikeld,
English Village-Names 259
where there is a celebrated “ holy spring/’ Bapchild, near Sittingbourne, is a curious corruption of a name appearing in a. charter of 697 as Baccancelde, and afterwards as Bce^acild and Bachanchilde, which denotes a “ beck source/’ or a spring supplying a stream. Kildwick in Yorkshire, D.B. Childewic, the '' village at the source,” may throw light on the name of Child’s Wickham, Gloucestershire. Wheldale, Yorkshire, with its well- known collieries, is in Domesday Queldale, the dale with a spring. From the A.S. seathy which denotes a spring which seethes or bubbles up, we have Roxeth, near Harrow-on-the-Hill, A.S. Hrdces seath (A.S. hrdc, a jackdaw, rook, or raven, genitive hroces). So Sittingboume, in Kent, formerly SedynghurnCy may be from a seething or bubbling bum. At Nafferton, in the East Riding, numerous springs bubble up over more than an acre from small holes the size of a pea, which are locally called ‘‘ naffers.”
The A.S. words junt and Junta y found in many local names^ though not in A.S. literature, meant a fountain or spring, being probably derived through the Welsh from the Latin fontem and fontana, Havant, Hants, called in an early charter Haman- funtay and afterwards Hafunty is the cricket’s spring (A.S. hama, a cricket, genitive haman). Fovant in Wilts, and Favant in Hants, A.S. Fobbejunt and Fobbefuntay may be explained either as the ebbing fount, or from fob, a southern dialect-word, possibly ancient, which means foam or froth. Mobrisfont, Hants, and Chalfont, Bucks, A.S. Ceadeles funtay are from proper names. Fonthiil, Wilts, is in A.S. Funtgealy Funtgeall, and Funtialy whence the change to Fonthiil is easy. The suffix -geal or -gaU means a ravine or gill, or Funt-ial may be the Welsh Jfwnt-ialy the clear fount. Fontlow, Surrey, in A.S. FontanhleWy is the grave mound at the spring. Fontmell, Wilts, is the A.S. Funtamel or Funtemal.
There are sixteen places called Seaton, most of which, as well as Seamer, are from the A.S. scBy a lake or sea. Many names with this suffix are accommodated forms, as in the case of Hornsea, Pevensea, Whittlesea Mere, Chelsea, or Mersea. This suffix is frequently from the A.S. ig or egy usually found in the dative, ige or ege, which denoted a watery place, hence an island, or a place beside water, such as a river bank or a sea coast, as in Portsea, Anglesea, and Battersea. Two villages called Mersea stand on Mersea Island, A.S. Meresige. The usual form of the suffix is -ey, as in Surrey, or Cholsey, Berks, A.S. Cedlesige, from cedi (genitive ceoles), a ship or keel. Sheppey, Kent, A.S.
26o
Words and Places
Scedpig, is the sheep island Ramsey^ Hunts^ A.S. Ramesige, the ram’s island; Hanney, Berks, A.S. Hannige, the isle of [water] hens; Hinksey, Berks, A.S. Hengestesige, the horse’s island. From personal names we have Dauntsey, Wilts, A.S. Domeccesige ; Kempsey, Worcestershire, A.S. Cymesige\ and Chertsey, A.S. Ceortesige. The suffix may dwindle down to -y, as at Ivory, ‘‘ Ivar’s Island ” in Lincolnshire, or Ely, the isle of eels. The word is used by itself at Eye, Northants, A.S. Ege^ or as a prefix, as in Egham, A.S. Egeham, a village on the Surrey shore of the Thames.
From the A.S. mcere or mere, a pool or mere, we have Cran- more, Somerset, A.S. Cranmere ; Ozlemere, Staffordshire, A.S. Oslanmere ; and Livermere, Suffolk, A.S. Leuuremer, all from water-birds. Tadmarton, Oxon, was the A.S. Tadmcertun, the tun by the frog-pool. Ashmore, Dorset, is A.S. Mscmere ; Ashmansworth, Hants, is A.S. Ms cmeresw earth ; Haselmere, Surrey, was Heselmceresgraf ; and Redmarley, Worcestershire, was Reodmcereledh ; while of the twenty-five places called Mars ton, several have been identified with places called Merstun in charters, though others may be from mersc, a marsh, which explains the name of Murston, Kent, A.S. Mersctun, and Middle- marsh, Dorset, A.S. Middelmcersc, From wdse, a swamp or wash, we have Hopewas, near Tamworth, anciently Hopewaes, the swainp in the valley; Alrewas, anciently Alrewasse, the alder swamp; and Buildwas in Salop. The common names Morley, Morton, and Morden are usually from mdr, a moor, heath, or fen. Thus Morden, Surrey, is A.S. Mdrdun ; Morley and Morton, Derbyshire, are A.S. Mdrledh and Mdrtun,
The A.S. dfer and dr a, which mean the shore of a sea or river, usually appear as -or or -ore in modern names, as in Windsor and Cumnor. Eastnor, Herefordshire (D.B. Astenofre), is the eastern shore; Edensor, Derbyshire (D.B. Ednesovre), is Ead- noth’s shore; and Esher, Surrey, A.S. Mscore, is the ash-tree shore. In Domesday, Codnor, Derbyshire, is Cotenovre ; Ower, Dorset, is Ora; Owram, Yorkshire, is Ovre ; and Hunsingore is Holsingovre. Radnor, Cheshire, was Readenora ; and Rowner, Hants, was Rugenora. Wardour, Wilts, whence Wardour Street and the title of Lord Arundel of Wardour, was Wear dor a.
The fact that five shires and ten county towns take their names from fords, while Bristol is the only city whose name bears witness to the existence of a bridge, affords a curious testimony to the want of facilities for travel at the time when our local names originated. A river as large as the Severn had
26i
English Village-Names
to be forded at Hereford, and we do not find a bridge before we come to Bridgenorth. The Thames had to be forded at Walling- ford, Halliford, and Oxford, the Ouse at Bedford, and the Lea at Stratford. Cambridge, Bridgewater, and Redbridge cannot be reckoned among towns with bridges, since they are corrup- tions of earlier names, while at Tunbridge and Weybridge the streams are small. Several fords are named from the rivers they cross: Chelmsford being on the Chelmer, Stortford on the Stort, Hartford on the Darent, Brentford on the Brent, Sleaford on the Slea, Thetford on the Thet, Lidford on the Lid, Eynford on the Eyn, Colyford on the Coly. Others are from personal names, as Bedford, A.S. Bedicanford ; Charford, A.S. Cerdices- ford; Kempsford, A.S. CynemcBresford ; Otford, A.S. Ottan- ford; Ugford, A.S. Ucganford; Snarford, A.S. Snardesford ; Daylesford, A.S. Degilesford. Others are descriptive, named from a tree or other object on the bank: Ashford from an ash, Thornford from a thorn, Alresford from an alder, Widford, A.S. Withigford, from a willow, Salford from a sallow, and Garforth from a fir-tree. Burford, A.S. Berghford, was near a hill, Clifford near a cliff, Woodford near a wood, Upford was the upper ford, and Bradford a broad ford. The fifteen Stanfords, Stamfords, or Stainforths were paved with stones, Coggleford with large round stones locally called coggles. The nine Staplefords were protected by piles or staples. The twenty-two Sandfords or Sampfords had a sandy bottom, Greatford had a bottom of grit or gravel, and Fulford is the foul or muddy ford. The fourteen Stratfords were fords on Roman roads. Fenny Stratford and Stony Stratford in Bucks being, for instance, fords on Watling Street, and Erminford, A.S. Earmingaford, and Chesterford on the Earming Street. Names like Streatham, Streatley, Streat- field, and the thirty places called Stretton or Stratton, also mark the lines of Roman road, Church Stretton, in Salop, for instance, being on the Roman road from Kenchester to Wroxeter, while the direction of the Fosseway is disclosed by Stretton-under- Fosse and Stretton-on-the-Fosse, both in Warwickshire, and by Stratton-on-Fosse in Somerset. The A.S. wceg or weg, a road or way, sometimes becomes wick, Powick, Worcestershire, being the A.S. Pohweg, while Stanwick, Northants, A.S. Stanweg, Stanwick, Yorkshire, D.B. Stenwege, are the stone way.
The secular character of English names as compared with those elsewhere is very marked. In Ireland about 2700 names have the ecclesiastical prefix Kil, often followed by the name of a saint, and in Wales there are nearly 500 saint-names with the
262
Words and Places
prefix Llan, while in England places bearing the names of saints, such as St. Austel, St. Just, St. Agnes or St. Michael, are found chiefly in Cornwall, which long remained Welsh. ' Elsewhere a few names, chiefly of monastic sites like St. Albans, St. Neot’s, St. Ives, and St. Bees, are all we have to show against some 315 villages and towns in France which bear the names of patron saints. Kirby, ‘‘ church village,” occurs thirty-five times in the Scandinavian districts, where also we have Kirkdale, Kirk- ham, Kirkstead, Kirton, and the like. The corresponding English forms, such as Bonchurch, the church of St. Boniface,” Boston, the town of St. Botolph,” Whitchurch, or Christ- church, are curiously rare, and the few that exist are often disguised, as in the case of Chirbury, Salop, the Ciricbyrig of the Chronicle, where Ethelfreda, the Lady of Mercia, built a church. Chritchell, Dorset, D.B. Circel, may be the ‘‘ little church,” and Chreshall, Essex, is called Christeshalla in a charter of Stephen’s reign. From ecclesia, the source of such Welsh and Scotch names as Ecclefechan, the church of St. Fechan, the Vigeanus of the Scottish calendar, we may probably explain the names of Eccles in Norfolk and Lancashire, Ecclesfield and Eccleshill in Yorkshire, and five places called Eccleston. Exhall, War\vick- shire, was the A.S. Ecdeshalc, the church slope, and Eccleshal] in Staffordshire has long been the residence of the Bishops of Lichfield.
The 644 religious houses which existed in England at the time of the dissolution have left numerous traces of their existence, often by the suffix minster, from monasterium, which we have in Westminster or Kidderminster. In the seventh century nunneries were founded at Minster in Thanet and Minster in Sheppey, and there was another at Nunminster, Hants, A.S. Nunnan-minster. Axminster, Ilminster, Sturminster, Char- minster, and Warminster take their names from the rivers Axe, Ivel, Stour, Char, and Were on which they stand. Pitminster, Somerset, A.S. Pipingminster and Pypmynster, may be from the A.S. pip, a pipe or flute. Beaminster, Dorset, takes its name from St. Bega. There were monasteries at Bedminster, Dorset; Newminster, Northumberland; Minster Lovell, Oxon; Kirk- stead, Lincolnshire; and at Kirkstall, Kirkham, and Kirklees in Yorkshire. At Abbotsbury, Dorset, a monastery was founded in the reign of Canute, and at Monkton Farley, Wilts, there was a convent of Cluniac monks. At Monks Kirby, Warwickshire, a Benedictine priory was founded in 1077, and there were monasteries at Monks Horton in Kent, and at Monk Bretton in
English Village-Names 263
Yorkshire. Nuneaton, Warwickshire, was a priory founded at Eaton by Robert, Earl of Leicester, for nuns of the order of Fontevrault. In Yorkshire, Nunbumholme, Nunmonkton, and Nimkeeling were Benedictine nunneries; while Nunappleton and Nunthorpe were Cistercian. Such names may only indicate monastic ownership. Thus Nunriding, Northumberland, be- longed to the nuns of Hallystone (Holy Stone), a Benedictine priory near a large sacred stone which still bears the older name of the Drakestone (Dragon Stone). Abbots Ann, near Andover, belonged to Hyde Abbey, Winchester; Abbotside, Yorkshire, belonged to Jervaulx Abbey; and Abington, Cambridgeshire, to St. Mary’s Abbey at York. Stapleford Abbots, Essex, belonged to the Abbey of Bury St. Edmunds; Abinghall, Gloucestershire, formerly called Abbenhall, was a residence of the abbots of Flaxley. Monkton, Durham, belonged to the monks of Jarrow; and Monkseaton, Northumberland, to the monks of Tynemouth. Monkland, Herefordshire, was a Bene- dictine cell; and Monkhill, near Pontefract, was a grange of St. John’s Priory.
Several monastic houses show by their French names that they were founded by Norman nobles. Among them are Belvoir, with its wide outlook over the plains of Lincolnshire, a Bene- dictine priory founded by Robert de Todeni in 1076; Beauchief Abbey, Derbyshire, founded in 1183 for Premonstratensian canons; and Beaulieu, Hants, a Benedictine house founded by King John in 1204. We may add Beau vale in Notts and Beaudesert in Staffordshire and Warwickshire. Jervaulx and Rievaulx, the great Cistercian abbeys in the valleys of the Ure and the Rye, retain a suffix which is a corruption of Vallibus. We have an Abbas de Rivallibus at Rievaulx, Clairvaux in Anjou being mentioned in 1130 as de clans vallibus.
Survivals from the heathen period are few, the most notable being Lydney. The numerous Holywells, rare in the east of England, but more frequent as we approach the Welsh border, are survivals of a Celtic cult, which at Holywell in Flintshire has been transferred to St. Winifred. Among survivals of Teutonic heathendom we may attribute to Woden names like the Wansdyke, Wednesbury, and Wednesfield (A.S. Wodnes- feld). From god, an idol, genitive godes, we have Godshill, Isle of Wight, A.S. Godeshyl, the “ idol’s hill ” ; and perhaps Godney, Somerset, A.S. Godenei, and Gadshill in Kent. Harrow-on-the- hill is from the West Saxon hearg or hearh, Mercian and Northumbrian herg, a heathen altar, or idol temple, which is
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the same word as the O.N. hbrgr, a sacrificial stone. From hearges, the genitive singular, or heargas, the nominative plural of this word, we have Arras in Yorkshire, formerly spelt Herghes or Erghes, and from Korgum, the O.N. dative plural, we have Airyholme or Eryholme, called in Domesday Ergun ; Erghum, D.B. Ergone ; Airsholme or Ayresome, formerly Arsum ; Arram, also in Yorkshire, formerly Argun ; Arkholme, Lanca- shire, D.B. Ergune ; and probably Averham in Notts, formerly Argum and Aigrum, Mr. Bradley has collected several in- stances in which this word forms the final syllable of the name. Grimsargh, a chapelry in the parish of Preston, Lancashire, D.B. Grimesarge, would be “ at the temple of Grimr ” or Odin. Goosnargh, a township in the parish of Kirkham, Lancashire, D.B. Gusanarghe, he interprets as gudhsins horgi, ‘‘ at the idol’s temple.” Mansergh, a chapelry in the parish of Kirby Lons- dale, Westmorland, D.B. Manzserge, might be a corruption of Mdnanshbrgi, “ at the temple of the moon.” The names Sizergh and Brettarg, also in Westmorland, and Kellamergh in Lancashire, are probably from the same word, which is only found in the North, except at Harrow, and at Pepperharrow in Surrey. The word was transferred to Christian shrines, as in the case of Anglezargh or Anglezarke, in the parish of Bolton, Lancashire, which may be explained Eingils-hbrgr, the angel’s temple, while Golcar in the parish of Hnddersfield was formerly Gudlagesarc, St. Guthlac’s chapel or temple. As landmarks, charters frequently make mention of a hyrgels^ which signified a heathen burial-place. None of these have been identified, but Burghill, Sussex, called Burgelstaltone in Domesday, must have been a tun near the place of a burgels.
CHAPTER XII
THE STREET-NAMES OF LONDON
The walls of Old London — Gradual extension of the town — Absorption of surrounding villages — The Brooks; the Holborn, the Tyburn, and the Westbourne — Wells, conduits, ferries — Monastic establishments of London — Localities of certain trades — Sports and pastimes — Sites of residences of historic families preserved in the names of streets — ^The palaces of the Strand — Elizabethan London — Streets dating from the Restoration.
The history of many cities has been deciphered from inscrip* tions, and so the history of Old London may, much of it, be deciphered from the inscriptions which we find written up at the corners of its streets. These familiar names, which catch the eye as we pace the pavement, perpetually remind us of the London of bygone centuries, and recall the stages by which the long unlovely avenues of street have replaced the elms and hedgerows, and have spread over miles of pleasant fields, till scores of outlying villages have been absorbed into a “ boundless contiguity ’’ of brick and mortar.
By the aid of the street-names of London let us then endeavour to reconstruct the history of London, and, in the first place, let us take these names as our guide-book in making the circuit of the old City Walls. The ancient wall started from the Norman fortress on Tower Hill, and ran to Aldgate — the “ Old Gate.’’ Between Aldgate and Bishopsgate the wall was protected by an open ditch, two hundred feet broad,^ whose name, Houndsditch, sufficiently indicates the unsavoury nature of its contents. Camomile Street and Wormwood Street remind us of the desolate strip of waste ground which lay immediately within the wall, and of the hardy herbs which covered it, or strove to force their rootlets between the stones of the grey rampart. In continuation of the street called Houndsditch, we find a street called Lpndon Wall. Here no ditch seems to have been needed, for the names of Finsbury, Moorfields, Moor Lane, and Moorgate Street, hand down the memory of the great Fen or Moor — an ‘‘ arrant fen,” as Pennant quaintly calls it — ^which protected the northern side of London.
^ Pennant, London^ p. 234.
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On this moor, just outside the wall, was the Artillery Ground/ where the bowmen were wont to assemble to display their skill.
Where the fen terminated the wall needed more protection, and here accordingly we find the site of the Barbican/ one of the gateway towers which seems to have guarded Aldersgate, the chief entrance from the north. Considerable remains of the wall are still visible in Castle Street, as well as in the church- yard of St. Giles’, Cripplegate.^ Passing by Newgate we come to the Old Bailey, a name which is derived from the ballium or vallum, an open space between the advanced gate of the city and the line of the outer wall.^
The wall now turned southward, and ran along the crest of Ludgate Hill, its western face being protected by the Fleet, a small stream which flowed through the ditch of the city wall, which was here called the Fleet Ditch. The River Fleet also gave its name to the street which crossed it at right angles, and entered the city by Fleetgate, Floodgate, or Ludgate.^
At the angle formed by the wall and the Thames stood a
^ Hard by we find Artillery Street, where the Bowyers and Fletchers fabricated longbows and cloth-yard shafts. The word artillery^ in old English, denotes bows and arrows, and it retained this meaning till the seventeenth century, for we find the word used in this sense in i Sam. xx., where our version reads, “ And Jonathan gave his artillery unto his lad, and said unto him. Go, carry them to the city/’
^ The whole tribe of modern Londonologists have followed Stow in deriving the word barbican from the Saxon burgh kenning^ or “ town watching ” tower. A barbican was, strictly, a projecting turret over a gateway. The true etymology of the word is undoubtedly that given by Camden (vol. ii. p. 85), from the Persian bdla khaneh, an upper chamber, whence also we derive the word balcony. We find this form in the case of Balcon Lane, which was parallel to, and just outside, the town wall of Colchester. See Wedgwood, Eng. Etym. vol. i. p. 97; and Wedgwood in Phil. Proc. vol. hi. p. 156.
® The wall gives its name to the parish of Allhallows-in- the- Wall, as well as to that of Cripplegate.
* In a similar position with respect to the city wall, we find the Old Bayle at York, the church of St. Peter in the Bailey at Oxford, and Bailey Hill at Sheffield and Radnor. A bailiff was originally the Bayle-reeve, or officer in charge of the Ballium; just as the sheriff is the shire-reeve. A bail is etymologically a palisade. Thus the bails at cricket were originally the stumps, the present restricted meaning of the word being of later origin. See Knapp, English Roots ^ pp. 79-81 ; Timbs, Curiosities of London, p. 556; Wedgwood, Diet, of Eng. Etym. vol. i. p. 96; Hartshorne, Salopia Antiqua, p. 241; Diez, Etym. Worterbuch, p. 37; Whitaker, Hist, of Manchester, vol. ii. p. 244.
® The words flood, fleet, and float, come from the Anglo-Saxon verb fleotan, to float or swim. A fleet is either that which is afloat, or a place where vessels can float — that is, a channel, or where water fleets or runs. Hence the names Ebbfleet, Northfleet, Southfleet, Purfleet, and Portfleet. The word vley, which the boers of the Cape use for the smaller rivers, is the same word fleet (Dutch vliet) in a somewhat disguised form. Kemble, Cod. Dip. vol. iii. p. xxv. See p. 147, supra.
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Norman fortress erected at the same time with the Tower of London.^ A wharf which occupies the site^ as well as one of the city wards, still retain the name of Castle Baynard, although every vestige of the fortress has long disappeared. Dowgate ^ and Billingsgate were two of the passages through that part of the wall which protected the city from assailants coming from the riverside.^
The small space within the walls of Old London was almost exactly of the same shape and the same area as Hyde Park. In fact, as the last syllable of its name indicates, London was originally a dun or Celtic hill-fortress, formed by Tower Hill, Comhill, and Ludgate Hill, and effectually protected by the Thames on the south, the Fleet on the west, the great fen of Moorfields and Finsbury on the north, and by the Houndsditch and the Tower on the east.**
For a long period London was confined within the limit of its walls. In the reign of Edward I. Charing was a country vDlage lying midway between the two cities of London and West- minster, and St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields long continued to be the village church. Along the Strand of the river hardly a house had been built in the time of Edward III., and no continu- ous street existed till the reign of Elizabeth. Even then, to the north of this straggling line of houses, the open country extended from Lincoln’s Inn Fields to the village church of St. Giles’-in-the-Fields. James I. ordered the justices to commit to prison any person presuming to build in this open space.® Long Acre, formerly a field called ‘‘ The Elms,” or “ The Seven Acres,” ® was not built upon till the reign of Charles I. And scarcely a century ago a man with a telescope used to station himself in Leicester Fields — now Leicester Square — and offer to the passers-by, at the charge of one halfpenny, a peep at the heads of the Scotch rebels which garnished the spikes on Temple Bar.*^
If, two or three centuries ago, what now forms the heart of
^See Thierry, Norman Conquest ^ p. 76; Cunningham, Handbook for London y p. 65.
* Possibly the Dourgate or water-gate. Gough’s Camden, vol. ii. p. 80.
® Pauli, Pictures of Old England, p. 416.
♦The natural advantages of the site have been well brought out by Dean Stanley in his admirable lecture on The Study of Modern History, PP- 352-355.
* Smith, Antiquarian Ramble, vol. i. p. 302; Mackay, History of London, p. 272.
® Timbs, Curiosities of London, p. 473.
^ Smith, Antiquarian Ramble, vol. i. p. 117.
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London was unbuilt upon, it was at a still more recent period that Kensington, Brompton, Paddington, Dalston, Stoke Newington, and Islington, remained detached country villages, though they are now districts incorporated with the wilderness of streets. There was a coach which took three hours to run, or rather to flounder, from the village of Paddington to London ; and Lord Hervey, in country retirement at Kensington, laments that the impassable roads should cause his entire isolation from his friends in London.
The names Spitalfields, Bethnal Green, Field Lane, Clerken- well Green, Paddington Green, Vine Street, Moorfields, Smith- field East and West, Coldbath Fields, St. George’s Fields, Spa Fields, Rosemary Lane, Copenhagen Fields, and Kingsland, indicate the rural character of the districts that separated the outlying villages from the neighbouring city. In these fields the citizens could take pleasant country walks with their wives, while their children clambered over Goodman’s Style, in Good- man’s Fields, or, on rare occasions, went nutting on Nutting or Notting Hill. There were windmills in Windmill Street, at the top of the Haymarket, and in Windmill Street, Finsbury ; there was a water-mill in Milford Lane, Strand ; while the hounds of the Lord Mayor’s pack were kennelled at Dog-house Bar, in the City Road.
In Tothill Fields there was a bear garden, and in the fields by the side of the brook which has given its name to Brook Street, an annual fair was held on the site of Curzon Street and Hertford Street — a rural fHe whose memory is preserved in the name of the fashionable region of Mayfair.
The names of the present streets will enable us to trace the courses of the brooks which ran through these country fields. The little stream called the Holborn, rising near Holborn Bars, gave its name to the street down which it flowed,^ and after turning the mill at Turnbull or Turnmill Street, it joined the Fleet River at Holborn Bridge. From this point to the
^ The “ Old Bourne,” or burn, is the etymology of “ The Holborn,” which is universally given — thoughtlessly copied, according to the usual custom, by one writer from another. That a village or town should be called Oldham, Aldborough, or Newton is intelligible, but how a name like Oldbourne should have arisen is difficult to explain. The introduction of the h is another difficulty in the way of this etymology. It seems far more in accordance with etymological laws to refer the name to the Anglo- Saxon hole, a hollow, or ravine; the Holborn will therefore be “ the Burn in the hollow,” like the Holbeck in Lincolnshire, and the Holbec in Normandy. The Charters in the Codex Diplomaticus supply apposite instances of the usage of the Anglo-Saxon word hole. See Leo, Anglo- Saxon Names, p. 8o*
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Thames the Fleet was navigable, at all events by barges, as is attested by the names of Seacoal Lane and Newcastle Lane.
Finsbury and Moorfields were drained by the Walbrook, which passed through the wall in its course to the Thames. Two or three centuries ago this stream was vaulted over, and Walbrook Street was built upon the ground thus gained. At Budge Row — a corruption of Bridge Row — there was a bridge over the brook. The Langbourne, another of the city streams, has given its name to one of the London wards ; and Sherbourne Lane, near London Bridge, marks the course of the Sherbourne. Further to the west, the positions of two small rivulets which crossed the Strand are denoted by Ivybridge Lane and Strand- bridge Lane.
The Tyburn, a much larger stream, after passing by the church of St. Mary le bourne, or Marylebone, and crossing the great western road near Stratford Place, passed across Brook Street, and down Engine Street, to the depression of Piccadilly. The hollow in the Green Park is, in fact, the valley of the Tyburn, and the ornamental water in front of Buckingham Palace was the marsh in which it stagnated before its junction with the Thames.
To the west of the Holborn and the Tyburn we find the Westbourne, with its affluent the Kilbum.^ Where this stream crossed the great western road, it spread out into a shallow Bay-water,^ where cattle might drink at the wayside. On the formation of Hyde Park a dam was constructed across the valley of the Westbourne, so as to head up the water, thus forming the Serpentine River, which leaves the park at Albert Gate, and crosses the Kensington Road at Knightsbridge.
It would appear that the water supply of Old London, when not derived from the Thames, the Holbom, or the Tyburn, was obtained from numerous wells — Clerkenwell or the priest’s well. Bridewell or St. Bridget’s well, Holywell,^ Sadler’s Wells, Bagnigge Wells, and others — and in later times from the con- duits or fountains which gave a name to Lamb’s Conduit Street, and Conduit Street, Regent Street. The use of the Shoreditch, the Walbrook, the Sherbourne, the Langbourne, and the Fleet,
^ Either the Cold-burn, or, more probably, the Well-burn. See p. 146, supra.
* A different etymology of Bayswater is, however, proposed in Notes arid Queries, first series, vol. i. No. ii, p. 162.
® I am not aware that any etymology of the name of Wych Street has been proposed. Like Wynch Street in Bristol, it may be probably derived from the wynch of the public well of Holywell.
2JO Words and Places
was, we will hope, discontinued at a comparatively early period.
Redriff, which is a corruption of Rotherhithe, St. Mary Somer- set, a corruption of Summer’s Hithe, Stepney,^ anciently Stebenhithe, Queenhithe, and Lambeth, or Loamhithe, mark some of the chief hithes ” or landing-places on the banks of the Thames.^
Close to London Bridge we find the church of St. Mary Over>^, or St. Mary of the Ferry.® This name, if we may believe the old traditions, recalls the time when the Thames was unbridged, and when the proceeds of the ferry formed the valuable endowment of the conventual church, just as Horseferry Road is a reminis- cence of the ferry which Westminster Bridge has superseded.
The Thames was formerly by no means confined to its present bed, but both above and below the city spread out into broad marshes, where the varying channels of the river inclosed numerous islands.** Lambeth Marsh, and perhaps Marsham Street, may remind us of the former. Some of the islands are commemorated by such names as Chelsea, which is a corruption of chesel-ey, or shingle isle; Battersea, which is St. Peter’s-ey; as well as Bermondsey, Putney, and the Isle of Dogs.^
The monastic establishments were chiefly situated in the fields around the city, their sacred character rendering un- necessary the protection of the walls. Convent, or Co vent Garden,® was the garden of the monks of Westminster Abbey. The name of the Chartreuse, or Carthusian convent, has been corrupted into the Charterhouse. At Canonbury, Islington, was an affiliated establishment of the canons of St. Bartholo- mew’s Priory, now St. Bartholomew’s Hospital. Spital Square
^ The name was anciently written Stebenhethe, which would mean either the “ timber wharf/’ or perhaps “ Stephen’s wharf.” Cunningham, Hand- book for London y p. 780,
“ The names of Erith and Greenhithe, lower down the river, contain the same root.
“ This etymology, as well as the inyths of the miserly ferryman and his fair daughter, are open to grave suspicion. St. Mary Overy is probably St. Mary Ofer-ea, or St. Mary by the water-side. The Anglo-Saxon ofer is the same as the modern German ufer^ a shore.
* See Chambers, Ancient Sea Mar gins y p. 14. Thorney Island, on which Westminster Abbey was built, seems to have been completely surrounded by the river. The ornamental water in St. James’s Park occupies a part of the bed of the northern branch of the Thames. Dining the excavation of St. Katharine’s Docks old ships were dug out, showing that here also the Thames must have shifted its channel. Lyell, Antiquity of Many p. 129.
^ Perhaps a corruption of the Isle of Digues, or dikes.
® So Orchard Street, Bristol, was the garden of a monastery, and Culver Street was the columbarium. Lucas, Seculariay p. 98.
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occupies the site of the churchyard belonging to the church of the priory and hospital of St. Mary, which stood beyond the walls in Spital Fields. In Austin Friars, Broad Street, stood the convent of the Augustines ; that of the Minoresses, or Nuns of St. Clare, was in the Minories, just outside the eastern wall; and in Crutched Friars, Tower Hill, was that of the Crutched Friars, distinguished by the cross upon their dress.^ St. Katharine^s Docks occupy the site of the abbey of St. Catherine. The Knights of the Temple of Jerusalem occupied what is now the Temple; the round church, built on the model of the church of the Holy Sepulchre, being the only part of the ancient building still remaining. At St. John’s Gate, Clerkenwell, we find a vestige of the other great military order, the Hospitallers, the Knights of the Hospital of St. John, of Jerusalem, Rhodes, and Malta.
To several of the convents belonged sanctuaries, or precincts possessing the valuable privilege of freedom from arrest. The Broad Sanctuary belonged to the abbot and monks of West- minster. The monastic establishment of the Savoy enjoyed similar privileges. The Times is now printed within the precincts of the convent of the Black Friars,^ or Dominicans,^ who together with the White Friars, or Carmelites, and the Grey Friars,^ or Franciscans, possessed the privileges of sanctuary, the abuse of which has conferred an unenviable notoriety upon the districts to which these immunities were attached.®
Special districts in the city, or in the suburbs, were assigned to aliens, or appropriated by those who carried on certain trades. Tooley Street, a corruption of St. Olaf’s Street,® and St. Clement
^ A crutch is the old English word for a cross. A cripple’s crutch has a cross piece of wood at the top. Crouchmass was the festival on the 14th of September, in honour of the Holy Cross. To crouch is to bend the body into the form of a cross. Crochet work is performed with a crooked needle. A person who has a crotchet has a crook in the mind. A crotchet in music is a crooked note. A shepherd’s crook is crooked at the top.
^ Gloster Court, Blackfriars, is a corruption of Cloister Court. See Whewell, in Philological Proceedings, vol. v. p. 140.
® The Augustines, the Dominicans, the Franciscans, and the Carmelites, were the four mendicant orders, whose sphere of labour lay among the crowded population of great cities. The Benedictines and Cistercians had their establishments, for the most part, in country districts, where they discharged the duties of great feudal landowners. See Pauli, Pictures of Old England, pp. 53-64.
* The monastery of the Grey Friars is now Christ’s Hospital. The cloisters and the buttery are the only parts of the old edifice now remaining. The Grey Fri^s were sometimes called the Minorites, but the name of the Minories is derived, as has been said above, from the Minoress nims, and not from the Minorite friars.
® Pauli, Pictures of Old England, pp. 425-427.
® St. Olaf was the great saint of Scandinavia.
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Danes ^ mark respectively the colony and the burying-place of the Danes in the southern and western suburbs. The Jews were admitted within the walls, and resided in the two districts which still retain the names of Jewin Street and the Old Jewry. The Lombard pawnbrokers and money dealers established, themselves in the street which bears their name, between the two chief centres of trade, the positions of which are denoted by the names of Cheapside and Eastcheap.^ The corn-market on Comhill adjoined the grass-market in Grasschurch or Grace- church Street, and the hay-market in Fenchurch Street.^ The wool-market was held round the churchyard of St. Mary Wool- church. The grocers were established in Sopers’ Lane;^ the buckler-makers in Bucklersbury ; ^ and Lothbury, a corruption of Lattenbury, was inhabited by the workmen in brass and copper. The names of the Poultry, the Vintry, Fish Street, Bread Street, Milk Street, Leadenhall,® Leather Lane, Silver Street, Shiremongers’*^ or Sermon Lane, and Smithfield, indicate the localities appropriated to other trades.
The streets in the neighbourhood of St. Paul’s were occupied by those who ministered to the temporal and spiritual necessities of the frequenters of the church. Dean’s Court, Doctors’ Commons, and Godliman Street, still form an oasis of ecclesiasti- cal repose amid the noise and whirr of the city. At the great entrance of the cathredal the scene must have resembled that which we see at the doors of continental churches, which are often blocked up by stalls for the sale oi rosaries, crucifixes, and breviaries. We read in Stow’s Survey : “ This street is now called Paternoster Row, because of the stationers or text- writers that dwelled there, who wrote and sold all sorts of books then in use, namely A B C, or Absies, with the Paternoster, Ave, Creed, Graces, etc. There dwelled also Turners of Beads, and they were called Patemoster-makers. ... At the end of Paternoster Row is Ave Mary Lane, so called upon the like occasion of text-writers and bead-makers then dwelling there.
^ See Worsaae, Danes and Norwegians^ P- 16; Stanley, Study of Modern History, p. 361 ; Stow, Survey, bk. iv. p. 113; Timbs, Curiosities of London, p. 123.
* From the Anglo-Saxon ceap, sale.
^ The name of Fenchurch is probably from fcenum or foin, hay. The western Haymarket dates from a much later period.
^ Now Queen Street, Cheapside.
® Stow, however, gives another derivation for this name. Survey, book hi. p. 27.
® A corruption of Leather Hall.
’ A Sheremonier was a man who cut bullion into shape ready for coining. The Mint, in Bermondsey, was the issuing place at a later date.
The Street-Names of London 273
And at the end of that lane is likewise Creed Lane, late so called, . . . and Amen Comer is added thereunto betwixt the south end of Warwick Lane, and the north end of Ave Mary Lane.’’ ^
Of the recreations of Old London but few memorials are preserved in names. It is difficult to realise the fact that tournaments were held on London Bridge, or in the middle of Cheapside. The name of Queen Street, Cheapside, seems to have arisen from an ancient stone balcony which had been erected at the comer of the street in order to enable the queens of England to enjoy the spectacle of the tourneys which on special occasions were held in this great thoroughfare
Dmry Lane Theatre was built on the site of a cockpit called the Phoenix, the memory of which is perpetuated, not only in the Rejected Addresses, but by the names of Phoenix Alley, leading to Long Acre, and of Cockpit Alley in Great Wyld Street.
The names of many of our streets preserve the remembrance of the sites of the town houses of great historical families. These were originally within the walls Addle Street, near the Guildhall, is believed by Stow to owe its name to the royal residence of Athelstane, which once stood upon the site. In the time of Henry VI. the Percys, Earls of Northumberland, had their town house near Fenchurch Street, on the spot which still goes by the name of Northumberland Alley. The De la Poles, Dukes of Suffolk, lived in Suffolk Lane, Cannon Street; Duck’s Foot Lane, close by, is probably a corruption of Duke’s Foot Lane; the Manners family resided in Rutland Place, Black- friars; the Earls of Devonshire in Devonshire Square, Bishops- gate; and the Earls of Bridgewater in Bridgewater Square, Barbican. London House Yard, in St. Paul’s Churchyard, marks the site of the palace attached to the See of London.
The greater security which existed under the Tudor princes is shown by the fact that the protection of the walls was gradually found to be unnecessary, and mansions began to cover
^ Stow, Survey of the Cities of London and Westminster, vol. i. p. 174. Contiguous to the Cathedral at Geneva are streets called Des Toutes Ames, Des Limbes, Du Paradis, and D’Enfer. Salverte, Essai, vol. ii. p. 336.
* The permanent stone balcony was erected in 1329, in consequence of the fall of one of the temporary wooden structures previously used. The name of the street was bestowed in 1667, when it was rebuilt after the Great Fire. See Mackay, History of London, p. 97; Cunninghana, Hand- book, p. 185.
* Richard III. resided in Castle Baynard, and Duke Humphrey of Gloucester, and Prince Rupert, in the Barbican. Old Palace Yard reminds us of the ancient palace of the kings of England, the site of which is now occupied by the Houses of Parliament.
Words and Places
274
the ground between London and Westminster, where hitherto churchmen only had found it safe to reside.
The Bishops of Bangor, Chichester, Durham, and Ely lived, respectively, in Bangor Court, Shoe Lane; Chichester Rents, Chancery Lane; Durham Street, Temple Bar; and Ely Place, Holbom. Saffron Hill, near Ely Place, has obtained its name from the saffron which grew abundantly in the gardens of Ely House. Between the River Fleet and Temple Bar we find Salisbury Square, which occupies the site of the courtyard of the old Salisbury House, belonging to the See of Sarum; while Dorset Street and Dorset Court, Fleet Street, mark the position of the residence of the Sackvilles, Earls of Dorset. In Clerken- well we find a Northampton Square, which was formerly the garden of the Earls of Northampton; and in Aylesbury Street and Cobham Row, both in the same fashionable locality, were the houses of the Earls of Aylesbury, and of the celebrated Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham. The Wriothesleys, Earls of Southampton, lived in Southampton Buildings, Chancery Lane, and Christopher Hatton, Elizabeth’s chancellor, had his house in Hatton Garden.
But the neighbourhood of the Strand ^ was the favourite residence of the great nobles, probably because the execrable condition of the roads rendered necessary the use of the Thames as the chief highway. At the beginning of the seventeenth century the Strand must have presented the appearance of a continuous line of palaces, with gardens sloping down to the brink of the then silvery Thames. Essex Street, Devereux Court, and Essex Court, point out the spot where Elizabeth’s favourite plotted and rebelled. The great space which is now occupied by Surrey Street, Howard Street, Norfolk Street, and Arundel Street, is a proof of the wide extent of the demesne attached to Arundel House, the residence of “ all the Howards.” The present Somerset House stands on the site of the palace built by the Protector Somerset, which afterwards became the residence of Henrietta Maria, queen of Charles I. Those nests of poverty and crime called Clarehouse Court, Clare Market, and Newcastle Street, replace the mansion and gardens of Clare House, the residence of the Earls of Clare, afterguards Dukes of Newcastle. Near Craven Buildings, Drury Lane, stood the house of Lord Craven, a soldier of the Thirty Years’ War, celebrated as the hero of Creutznach, and the champion of the Winter Queen. Clifford’s Inn and Gray’s Inn were the mansions ^ See Cunningham, Handbook for London, pp. 783, 784.
The Street-Names of London 275
of the Barons Clifford and Gray de Wilton. Peter de Savoy, uncle of Eleanor of Provence, the queen of Henry III., built for himself a palace at the Savoy, which was afterwards converted into a conventual establishment. Facing each other, on opposite sides of the Strand, stood the mansions of the two sons of the great Sir William Cecil, Lord Burleigh. The elder soft created Earl of Exeter, occupied his father’s house, which has now made way for Burleigh Street, Exeter Hall, and Exeter Street; while the younger son, Sir Robert Cecil, Earl of Salis- bury, built Salisbury House on the site where Cecil Street and Salisbury Street are now standing.^
In close proximity to the houses of the Cecils was, as we have seen, the “ convent garden,” belonging to the abbot and monks of Westminster. After the dissolution of the monasteries this property came into the hands of the Russell family, and here the Earls of Bedford built a mansion, which, about a century and a half ago, gave place to Southampton Street, Russell Street, Tavistock Street, and Bedford Street. The Russells then removed to Bloomsbury, where Bedford Square, Southamp- ton Street, Russell Square, Tavistock Square, and Chenies Street, preserve the memory of the great house they occupied. Sydney Alley, and Leicester Square, remind us of another historic name — that of Robert Sydney, Earl of Leicester, whose house stood on what is now called Leicester Place. George Street, Villiers Street, Duke Street, or Alley and Buckingham Street, preserve every syllable of the name and titles of “ Steenie,” the fortunate and unfortunate favourite of James I. and “ baby Charles.” Of all the palaces which once lined the Strand, Northumberland House is the only one which still remains.
If the Strand is full of memories of the statesmen and favourites of Elizabeth, Piccadilly ® brings us to the time of the Restora- tion. Albemarle Street and Clarges Street,^ Arlington Street and Bennet Street,^ The Clarendon, Cork Street,® Coventry
^ The Adelphi, with the five streets — Robert Street, John Street, George Street, James Street, and Adam Street, was built in 1760, by four brothers of the name of Adam.
* Now improved away. See Stanley, Lecture on the Study of Modern History, p. 362.
® So called from Piccadilla Hall, a shop for the sale of piccadillas, the fashionable peaked or turn-over collars.
* Monk, Duke of Albemarle, and Nan Clarges, Duchess of Albemarle.
* Henry Bennet, Earl of Arlington.
* Boyle, Earl of Cork.
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276
Street/ Dover Street, Jermyn Street and St. Alban’s Place,* Sackville Street and Dorset Place/ Cleveland Row,^ King Street, Charles Street, St. James’ Street, Duke Street, York Street, and The Albany, ^ are in convenient proximity to Pall Mall, and the Mall in St. James’s Park, where the courtiers from whom these streets derived their names played at Faille Maille while the merry monarch fed his ducks.
There are a few scattered names to remind us of persons and events memorable in later times. Harley Street, Oxford Street, Henrietta Street, Cavendish Square, and Holies Street, take their names from Harley, Earl of Oxford, and his wife Lady Henrietta Cavendish Holies. Hans Place and Sloane Street bear the names of Sir Hans Sloane, who invested his fees in the purchase of the manor of Chelsea, and in the formation of a collection of natural curiosities as celebrated as Harley’s collec- tion of MSS. or the marbles of the Earl of Arundel. Pimlico takes its name from a celebrated character of a very different order — one Ben Pimlico, who kept a suburban tavern, first at Hoxton, but afterwards transferred to the neighbourhood of Chelsea.®
The dates at which other streets were built can, in many cases, be determined by the names they bear. If the Savoy reminds of the queen of Henry III., Portugal Street, Lincoln’s Inn, carries us to the time of the marriage of Charles II. Queen Ann Street, Marlborough Street, Hanover Square, Great George Street, Regent Street, King William Street, and Victoria Street, afford dates, more or less definite, of certain metropolitan extensions or improvements; while Blenheim Street, Quebec Street, Vigo Street, Waterloo Bridge, and Trafalgar Square, are instances of that system of nomenclature which has been so extensively carried out in Paris.
^ Lord Keeper Coventry.
2 Henry Jermyn, Earl of St. Albans, one of the heroes of Grammont’s Memoirs.
3 Edward Sackville, Earl of Dorset.
^ The “ beautiful fury,” Barbara Villiers, Duchess of Cleveland, mistress of Charles II.
® Charles II., and James, Duke of York and Albany.
® The Malakoff, in like manner, was called from a tavern kept by Alexander Ivanovitch Malakoff, a ropemaker discharged for drunkenness from the arsenal at Sebastopol. Strange origin for a ducal title. See Charnock, Local Etymology ^ pp. 172, 210.
CHAPTER XIII
HISTORIC SITES
Places of popular assembly — Runnimede — Moot-hill — Detmold — ^The Scandinavian things ” or parliaments — ^The Thingvellir of Iceland — The Thingwalls and Dingwells of Great Bri^in — Tynwald Hill in the Isle of Man — Battle-fields: Lichfield, Battle, Slaughter- — Conflicts with the Danes — Eponymic Names — Myths of Early English History — Carisbrooke — Hen^st and Horsa — Cissa — ^Elle — Cerdic — Offa — Maes Garmon — British chieftains — Valetta — Alexander — Names of the Roman emperors — Modern Names of this class.
In the preceding chapter it has been shown how the history of a great city tends to perpetuate itself in its street-names. It would be easy, did space permit, to apply the same method of investigation to other cities, such as Paris,^ Rome, or Athens. We might show, from the evidence of names, how Paris was originally confined to the little island in the Seine, upon which the cathedral of Notre Dame now stands ; and how the Louvre was at first a hunting-seat; and the Tuileries a tile-yard (French tuile, a tile). The names of the Palatine, the Vatican, and the Janiculum, of the Forum, and the Latin Gate at Rome, or of the Ceramicus, the Acropolis, and the Pnyx at Athens, would prove singularly suggestive.^
But the instance of London may suffice as an example of the value of local names in city history, and in this chapter we will rather pursue another department of the subject, and collect the names of various scattered Historic Sites — ^names which conserve the remembrance of historic personages, which denote the localities of great battles, or of places otherwise memorable in the history of the human race.
The places where popular self-government has at any time been exercised are frequently indicated by local names.
Runnimede, the “ meadow of the runes,” was the ancient
^ This has been imperfectly attempted for Paris in a work by M. Ferdinand Heuzey, entitled, Curiosites de la Cite de Paris, Hisioire EtymoLogique de ses Rues, etc. Paris, 1864.
* There are mono^aphs of greater or less value on the street-names of the cities of Brunswick, Heiligenstadt, Hildesheim, Koln, Nuremberg, and Amsterdam. A curious list of German street-names will be found in Fdrstemann, Deut. Ortsnamen, pp. 167-169.
277
Words and Places
278
Anglo-Saxon field of council ; ^ and^ on the spot thus consecrated to national liberty, the privileges of the great feudatories of England were afterwards secured by the Magna Charta.
In Scotland the ancient place of assembly was the Mote Hill at Scone, near the ancient capital of Scotland.^ In the midst of the town of Hawick there is a singular conical mound called the Moat Hill. We may notice also the names of the Moot Hill at the eastern end of Lyne Bridge, and the Mote of the Mark in Galloway. On the confines of the Lake District, there are hills called Moutay and Caermote; and there is a Moot-Hill at Naseby, all of which have probably served as the meeting-places of assemblies.^
The Stannary Court of the Duchy of Cornwall is an assembly which represents, in continuous succession, the local courts of the ancient Britons. The court was formerly held in the open air, on the summit of Crokem Tor,^ where the traveller may still see concentric tiers of seats hewn out of the rock. The name of Crokem Tor seems to point to a deliberative assembly,^ and Wistman’s Wood, in the immediate neighbourhood, suggests the wisdom traditionally imputed to the grave and reverend seniors who took part in the debates.
In Germany there are several places called Ditmold. We find the names Detmold, Dietmale, Rodenditmol, and Kirch- ditmold. These were all places of popular assembly, as the names imply. The first portion of the name is diet, people, which we have in the name of Deutschland.® The suffix is trial, a place of assembly, or a court of justice.’
But the most noticeable traditions of ancient liberties are associated with the places where the Things^ the judicial and
^ Matthew of Westminster, a.d. 1215.
^ This, perhaps the most interesting historical memorial in Scotland, has been recently removed, to improve the view from the drawing-room window! Palgrave, Normandy and England ^ vol. iv. p. 336.
^ Ferguson, Northmen in Cumberland, p. 33 ; Pennant, Scotland, vol. iii. p. 115.
^ See Gough’s Camden, vol. i. pp. 43, 49; Murray, Handbook of Devon, P- 95-
^ We have the W’^elsh word gragan, to speak loud, whence comes the English verb to croak, to make a loud noise like a frog or raven. The creaking of a door and the name of the corncrake are from the same root. Compare the Sanskrit krug, to call out, the Greek Kpuj^ia, and the Latin crocire. See Diefenbach, Vergleichendes Worterb. vol. ii. p. 591; Celtica, Glossary, No. 184; Whitaker, History of Manchester, vol. ii. p. 313.
® See p. 59, supra.
’ Piderit, Ortsnamen, pp. 309, 310; Forstemann, Die Deutschen Ortsna- men, p. 95; Diefenbach, Vergleich. Worterb. vol. ii. pp. 59, 706.
* The word thing is derived from the Old Norse tinga, to speak, and is allied to the English word to think. See Ihre, Glossarium Suiogothicum,
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279
legislative assemblies of the Scandinavian nations, were wont to meet. These institutions, of which we find traces in all the regions colonised by the Northmen, were derived from the parent country, Norway, where there was an Althing, or general assembly, and four district Things for the several provinces.^ The Norwegian parliament still goes by the name of the Stor- thing, or great council. The Thing usually met on some island, hill, or promontory, where its deliberations could be carried on secure from lawless disturbance.
The Swedish parliament used to assemble on a mound near Upsala, which still bears the name of Tingshogen (Thing- hough)?
One of the chief attractions for Icelandic tourists is a vast sunken lava-plain which bears the name of the Thingvellir,^ or
council plains.” In the midst of this plain there is an isolated area, some two hundred feet long and fifty broad, which is guarded on every side by deep rifts,^ produced by the cooling of the lava. Across these rifts the sole access is by one narrow bridge of rock. This spot, so well guarded by nature, is called the Althing, and was the assembly-place of the “ general council ” of the whole island. A mound, in the midst of the Althing, bears the name of the Logberg,^ the sacred hill of laws,” from whose summit, for nine hundred years, all the enactments of the Althing had to be promulgated before they could receive the force of laws.®
vol. ii. p. 901 ; Haldorsen, Islandske Lexicon^ vol. ii. p. 407. The bodyguard of the Danish kings was called thingamanna lith, its chief duty being to escort the monarch at these assemblies.
^ Laing, Heitnskringla^ vol. i. pp. 103, 114-119.
^ Ibid. vol. i. pp. 89, 117.
® Often wrongly called the Thingvalla. This, however, is the genitive case. The word vdllr means a plain or field. The root is the Norse vo/r, a stick or post (Maeso-Gothic valus : cf. the English goal, a winning-^05^) . The vdllr takes its name from the nature of the inclosing fence, like ton, ham, garth, etc. See pp. 100-102, and the notes on the words bally and bail, pp. 188, 266, supra ; also Diefenbach, Vergleich. Worterb. vol. i. p. 179.
* A tradition which still lingers on the spot avers that during the battle which ensued upon the hearing of the suit for the burning of Njal’s house, Flosi, the leader of the burners, took a wild and desperate leap across one of these chasms. Dasent, Burnt Njal, vol. i. p. cxxviii.
® The upper chamber of the Norwegian parliament is called the Lag. Crichton, Scandinavia, vol. i. p. 158.
* The Thingvellir have been described sixteen times by recent travellers. Perhaps the most graphic accounts are those given by Dasent, Burnt Njal, vol. i. pp. cxxv-cxxxix; Norsemen in Iceland, p. 207; Dufferin, Letters from High Latitudes, pp. 84-95; and Baring-Gould, Iceland, pp. 67-71. The Icelandic parliament, with full legislative and judicial powers, con- tinued to meet at the Thingvellir till the year 1800. The legislative powers have now ceased; the judicial functions were restored in 1845, since which time the meeting-place has been at Reykjavik.
28o
Words and Places
Each of the twelve districts into which Iceland is divided had also its Thing, where the peasant-nobles carried into effect their privileges of local self-government. Thinganes, Thingskaler, Arnesthing^ Thingore, and Thingmuli, were, as the names denote, places at which some of these subordinate assemblies were accustomed to be held.
The Northmen introduced their Things into England. The very name survives among us as a household word. A ‘‘ meet- ing,” according to Dr. Dasent, is the mot thing, or assembly of freeholders, and at the ‘‘ hustings,” or house things, the duly qualified householders still assemble to delegate their legis- lative powers to their representatives in parliament.^
In the Danelagh, as well as in most of the detached Scan- dinavian colonies, we find local names which prove the former existence of these Things.
In the Shetland Islands, Sandsthing, Aithsthing, Delting, Nesting, and Lunziesting, were the places of assembly for the local Things of the several islands,^ while Tingwall seems to have been the spot where the Althing, or general assembly, was held. In a fresh-water lake, in the parish of Tingwall, there is an island still called the Sawting. On it are four great stones, the seats for the officers of the court, and the access is by stepping-stones laid in the shallow waters of the lake.^ In the Shetlands, the old Norwegian laws are even now administered at open courts of justice, which still go by the ancient name of Lawtings.
In the Ross-shire colony we find the names of Dingwall and Tain,^ while Tinwald Hill, near Dumfries, was the assembly place of the colonists who settled on the northern shore of the Solway.® Not far from the centre of the Cheshire colony in the Wirall, we find the village of Thingwall.® Near Wrabness, within the limits of the little colony in the north-east of Essex, we find a place whose name, Dengewell, probably marks the spot where the local jurisdiction was exercised. The three neighbouring Danish parishes of Thorp le Soken, Walton le Soken, and Kirby le Soken, possessed the privilege of holding a
^ Dasent, Burnt Njal, vol. i. p. li. ; Worsaae, Danes ^ p. 19.
* These were usually held in the centre of circles of upright stones, perhaps the erection of an earlier race. See Wilson, Pre-historic Annals, p. 113; Poste, Brit. Researches, p. 256; Worsaae, Danes, p. 232.
® Martin, Description of the Western Isles, p. 383, quoted by Train, Isle of Man, vol. i. p. 299.
* Worsaae, Danes and Norwegians, p. 260.
^ Ib. p. 204; Crichton, Scandinavia, vol. i. p. 158, See p. 136, supra.
* Worsaae, Danes, p. 70.
Historic Sites
28 !
soke, or local court, independent of the jurisdiction of the hundred — a vestige, probably, of their ancient Scandinavian franchises.
In the absence of all documentary evidence, I was inclined to believe that the apparently Danish names in Devonshire ^ must be explained from Saxon sources; I felt that I should hardly be justified in placing a Scandinavian colony in that county, so far removed from their compatriots in the Danelagh. But all cause for hesitation was removed by the accidental discovery of an isolated farmhouse bearing the name of Ding- well. It stands on a plateau, steeply scarped on three sides, and about a mile from the village of Thur-shel-ton, a name every syllable of which is of the Icelandic type, denoting the tun or enclosure round the skaaler, or wooden booths, which were usually erected at some little distance from the Thing- vellir for the convenience of persons attending the meeting. The Thing was inaugurated by sacrifices and religious cere- monies, which enables us to understand why the name of the deity Thor should appear in the first syllable of this name Thurshelton.2 These two names, Thurshelton and Dingwell, surrounded as they are by names of the Norse type, seem to prove conclusively^ that the Northmen must have settled in this remote corner of the island in sufficient numbers to establish their usual organised self-government.
In the Danelagh we meet with several places bearing names of the same class, which may, with greater or less certainty, be regarded as meeting places of local Things. In Northampton- shire we have, near Kettering, a place called Finedon, which was anciently written Thingdon, and there is a place called Dingley near Market Harborough. Not far from Stamford we find Tin well in the county of Rutland, and Tinge wick, in the north of Buckinghamshire. In Yorkshire, there are Tinsley near Rotherham, and Thwing near Bridlington. In Durham, on the extreme northern border of the Danelagh, we find Dins- dale,^ a place which is almost entirely surrounded by one of the
^ See p. 141, supra.
* Near Ting^^all, in Shetland, we find Scalloway, or Booth Bay. Worsaae, Danes, p. 232. Mr. Ferguson thinks Portingsca/^, near Keswick, is an analogous name. Northmen, p. 31.
* This conclusion, it is fair to add, has been ably controverted by Mr. King, in Notes and Queries, November 5, 1864. He would derive the name of Thurshelton from a neighbouring stream called the Thistle Brook, and is of opinion that all the apparently Norse names in Devonshire may be explained from Saxon sources. Valeat quantum.
* Tindale in Northumberland is probably the Tyne dale.
202
Words and Places
bends of the Tees, and is thus well protected from hostile intrusion, as is the case with so many of these sites. I cannot discover the place where the Lincolnshire Thing assembled, unless indeed it be at Thimbleby or Legboum.
In the Scandinavian district of Cumberland and Westmore- land, the word Thing does not appear in any local name; but the Vale of Legberthwaite, no doubt, contained the Idgberg^ or “ hill of laws,’’ from which the local enactments were promul- gated.^
By far the most interesting of these ancient Westminsters is Tynwald Hill in the Isle of Man. Less than a century ago the Isle of Man preserved a sort of quasi independence of the British crown, and it was only in the year 1764 that the Duke of Athol parted with the last of the royal rights, which had descended to him from the ancient Norwegian kings. But though the repre- sentative of the Norwegian jarls has divested himself of his regal prerogatives, the descendants of the vikings still retain a shadow of their ancient legislative powers. The old Norse Thing has survived continuously in the Isle of Man to the present day, though in Iceland, in Norway, and in Denmark, its functions have been intermitted, or have long ceased. The three estates still assemble every year, and no laws are valid in the island unless they have first been duly proclaimed from the summit of Tynwald Hill.^ This is an ancient mound some eighteen feet in height, and constructed with four concentric circular stages, whose diameters are, respectively, 80, 27, 15, and 7 feet.^
The ancient place of the coronation of the kings of England was Kingston in Surrey, where, in the centre of the town, is still to be seen the stone on which the Saxon monarchs sat while the ceremony was performed. Trondhjem, or Drontheim, was in like manner the ‘‘ throne home,” or coronation seat of the kings of Norway,^ and Konigsberg,^ in the extreme east of Prussia, shows the way in which that agglomerated kingdom has ex- tended itself westward from the ancient central seat of the
^ Ferguson, Northmen in Cumberland^ p. 32.
^ Palgrave, English Commonwealth, vol. i. p. 122; Worsaae, Danes, p. 295 ; Crichton, Scandinavia, vol. i. p. 158. A full account of the powers of the estates, and of the ceremonies observed when they are convened, will be found in Train, Isle of Man, vol. ii. pp. 189-201.
^ Train, Isle of Man, vol. i. pp. 271-273 ; Poste, Brit. Res. p. 256.
* It is possible, however, that the root may be the same as that of Thrandia. Crichton, Scandinavia, vol, i. p. 32.
® Mone, Celtische Forschungen, p. 265, makes Argos the equivalent of Konigsberg! arg, a prince; ais, a fortress ! !
Historic Sites 283
grand master of the Teutonic Knights.^ Kingsgate, in the Isle of Thanet, marks the spot where Charles II. landed after his exile; and Queenborough, in the Isle of Sheppey, is a proof of the development of the English navy in the time of Edward III. The manor of Hull, or Kingston-upon-Hull, was purchased by Edward I. ; and Coningsby, Coneysby, Conington, Cunningham, Kingthorpe, Kinsby, King’s Lynn, Lyme Regis, and many similar names, denote the residences, or manors, of Saxon, Danish, and English monarchs.
Local names often conserve the memory of famous battles, or sometimes they tell us of forgotten contests of which no other memorial remains.
Probably the greatest reverse ever suffered by the Roman arms was the defeat which Hannibal inflicted on Flaminius at Thrasymene. The brook which flows through this scene of slaughter is still called the Sanguinetto, and the name of the neighbouring village of Ossaia shows that the plain must' have long been whitened by the bones of the fallen Romans. 2
. The Teutonic division of the Cimbric horde which invaded Italy was annihilated by Marius in the year 102 b.c., and the slaughter is said to have reached the immense number of 100,000 men. The battle-field afterwards bore the name of the Campi Putridi, a name which is preserved by the Provencal village of Pourrieres. The Temple of Victory built by the conqueror is now the parish church of St. Victoire.^
Of the great battles which have changed the course of the world’s history, few are more important than the defeat of the Huns by the Emperor Otho in the tenth century. This battle, regarded as to the magnitude of its results, can only be com- pared with the overthrow of the Saracens by Charles Martel. The one rescued Christianity, the other saved civilisation. The Magyar host, like that of the Saracens, was all but exterminated, and the name of the Leichfeld, or ‘‘ Field of Corpses,” near Augsburg, informs us of the precise locality of the fearful slaughter.'*
^ There are ten Konigsbergs in Germany. See Buttmann, Ortsnamen^ p. 38; Forstemann, Ortsnameny p. 299.
* Dennis, Etruria^ vol. ii. p. 457; Duke of Buckingham, Private Diary, vol. iii. pp. 658-666.
^ Sheppard, Fall of Rome^ p. 164.
* Palgrave, Normandy and England, vol. ii. pp. 658-666.
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284
Our two English Lichfields/ one in Staffordshire ^ and the other in Hampshire, where are seven barrows,^ as well as Leckhampstead in Buckinghamshire, are probably memorials of battles of which history has preserved no certain record. The chroniclers tell us that in the year 1173, an army of 10,000 Flemings under Robert, Earl of Leicester, was almost totally annihilated at Lackford, near Bury St. Edmund’s, by Richard Lucy, Chief Justice of England. Leckford in Hampshire may also not improbably indicate the site of a bloody battle which was gained by Cymen over the Britons in this immediate neighbourhood.
The final overthrow of the Britons by Athelstan in the year 936 occurred at a place called Bolleit, in Cornwall. This name means in Cornish the “ House of Blood.”
The name of Battlefield,^ about three miles from Shrewsbury, is a memorial of the decisive contest which Shakespeare has so vividly brought before us; and an additional memorial of the fiery Welsh chieftain is found in an ancient tumulus near Corwen, which bears the name of Dinas Mont Owain Glyndwr, and from the summit of which he is said to have been in the habit of gazing down the valley of Dee.
Close to Bannockburn is the inclosure of Bloody Fold, where the Earl of Gloucester fell, and the name of Gillies Hill com- memorates the station of the camp followers who created the fatal panic.
Of the destruction of the Spanish Armada, we have a geographical reminiscence in the name of Port-na-spanien in Ireland, where one of the galleons of the Invincible Armada was dashed to pieces.®
There is a place called Battle Flats north of Bosworth, though perhaps hardly near enough to be confidently referred to as the scene of the struggle. Crown Hill, a small eminence on the plain, is pointed out as the spot where Stanley placed Richard’s crown on the head of Henry VII.
^ The German word leich, a corpse, is preserved in the lychgate of our churchyards, where the corpse awaits the approach of the priest ; and in the lykewakCy or funeral feast, which is celebrated in some parts of Scotland. See Drake, Shakspeare and his Times, vol. i. p. 234.
^ The city arms are a field surcharged with dead bodies. Tradition refers the name to the martyrdoms of a thousand Christian converts. See Fuller, Church History, vol. i. p. 34.
^ Gough’s Camden, vol. i. p, 205.
* The collegiate church of Battlefield was founded by Henry IV. in com- memoration of the victory. Pennant, Wales, vol. ii. p. 41 1.
* Goldwin Smith, Irish History and Irish Character, p. 85.
Historic Sites
285
The flying cavaliers, after the defeat at Naseby, were over- taken and cut to pieces at a place now called Slaughterford, where the road to Harborough crosses the Welland ; ^ and a part of the route by which Monmouth’s army marched to the night attack at Sedgemoor still goes by the name of War Lane.^
The names of the town of Battle in Sussex, and of Battle Flats near Stamford Bridge, have already been mentioned as instances in point.^ Senlac (Sangue Lac), the Norman name of the battle- field of Hastings, still survives as a local name in the neighbour- hood of the town of Battle. Standard Hill, close by, is said to be the place where the Conqueror raised his standard previous to the commencement of the engagement, and Montjoie, one of the four wards of the town, commemorates the spot to which he rode in triumph at the conclusion of the fight.^
About six miles south of Poictiers there is a place called Maupertuis, a name supposed to commemorate the exact site of the battle-field which proved so disastrous to the chivalry of France. Frederick the Great’s victory over the Austrians at Hohenfriedberg has given the name of Siegesberg, or “ Victory Hill,” to an eminence which stands within the confines of the battle-field.^
The terror which was inspired by the inroads of the Danes, and the joy with which their discomfiture was hailed, is evidenced by numerous local names, which are often associated with traditionary battle-legends which still linger among the surrounding villagers. Such a tradition is connected with a camp in Hampshire called Ambrose Hole, hard by which runs a rivulet called Danestream.® At Slaughterford in Wiltshire,*^ and at Bledloe ® {bloody hlaw) in Buckinghamshire, there are traditions that great slaughters of the Danes took place.
In the Saxon Chronicle (a.d. 1016) we have an account of the great victory gained by Cnut over Eadmund Ironside, which led to the division of the kingdom between the two monarchs. The Chronicle places the battle at Assandun in Essex. Near Billericay there is a place now called Assingdon, and in the neighbourhood we find twenty barrows, and the names of Canewdon and Battlebridge.®
^ James, Northamptonshire, p. 50.
* Macaulay, History of England, vol. i. p. 608. ^ p 23, supra,
* Hartshorne, Salopia Antiqua, p. 241 ; Palgrave, Normandy and England, vol. iii. p. 406.
“ Carlyle, Frederick the Great, vol. iv. p. 137.
® Gough’s Camden, vol. i. p. 187.
’ Ibid. vol. i. p. 141. « Ibid. vol. ii. p. 41.
* Ibid. vol. ii. p. 131.
286
Words and Places
On Camphill near Rochdale the Danes are said to have encamped on the eve of the battle that was fought in the neigh- bourhood; and Killdanes, the name of the valley below Camp- hill^ tells us the story of that bloody day.^
Near Stow-on-the-Wold in Gloucestershire is a Danish earthwork called Bury Camp, and the adjacent villages bear the names of Slaughter and Leach In a field called Knap Dane in the parish of Nettlecombe, a vast quantity of bones was found, supposed to be those of the Danes who landed at Watchet in the year 918.^
At Danebury near Chelmsford, and at Danes-banks in the parish of Chartham in Kent,^ the outlines of camps are still to be traced. Gravenhill is also the legendary scene of a battle with the Danes. It is surrounded with entrenchments, and is covered with mounds, which are probably the graves of the fallen warriors.^ At Danes Graves on the Yorkshire wolds numerous small tumuli are still visible.® The name of Danes- ford, in Shropshire, is supposed to be a memorial of the Danes who wintered at the neighbouring town of Quatford in the year 896. Dantsey or “ Danes Island ’’ in Wiltshire was formerly the property of the family of the Easterlings,® a name usually given to the Vikings from the East.
Ware in Hertfordshire seems to have been the place at which Alfred constructed his weir across the River Lea, in order to cut off the retreat of the Danish fleet.®
On Brent Emoll near Athelney in Somersetshire is a camp which tradition ascribes to Alfred, and at the foot of the hill, half a mile from its summit, stands the village of Battlebury.^® There is also a camp near Salisbury which goes by the name of Battlesbury, and there is a place called Battlewic near Colchester.
By the side of the Dee in Scotland there is an ancient earth- work called Norman (Northmen’s) Dikes, in the front of which there is a piece of land which bears the name of Bloody Stripe.^^ Near Burnham in Norfolk there is a camp surrounded by tumuli,
^ Davies, in Philological Transactions for 1855, p. 261.
^ Ibid. vol. i. p. 407.
* Ibid. vol. i. p. 90.
* Ibid. vol. i. p. 354.
® Kennett, Parochial Antiquities, vol. i. p. 50.
® Worsaae, Danes and Norwegians, p. 40.
^ Hartshome, Salopia Antiqua, p. 260.
® Gough’s Camden, vol. i. p. 130.
® St. John, Four Conquests, vol. i. pp. 298, 299; Turner, Anglo-Saxons, vol. i. p. 398 ; Gough’s Camden, vol. ii. p. 68.
Gough’s Camden, vol. i. p. 103.
” Chalmers, Caledonia, vol. i. p. 125.
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the road leading to which goes by the name of Bloodgate.^ At Chelsham in Surrey there is a Roman camp crowning the summit of a knoll called Botle or Batle Hill.^ Two Roman camps in .Forfarshire go by the names of Battle Dikes and War Dikes.-^ There is a camp near Caterham called War Coppice; and the name of Caterham itself may perhaps be referred to the Celtic word cath, battle. Cadbury, a name which occurs in Somerset- shire and in Devon, means the “ Battle entrenchment.’' Cater- thun, a remarkable Celtic fortress which overlooks Strathmore, is no doubt “ Battle Hill.” The numerous Cat Stanes in Scot- land are supposed to be memorials of battles. Such are the Catt Stane in Kirkliston parish, and the Caig Stone near Edin^ burgh.^ From the Anglo-Saxon camp, battle, we have a few names like Campton and Kempston in Bedfordshire.^
In the case of several of these battle-fields we find traditions which assign a local habitation to the names of British chieftains or Anglo-Saxon kings. It is possible that in some of these instances minute fragments of historic truth have been con- served, but it is needless to say that the greatest caution must be exercised as to the conclusions which we allow ourselves to draw. The traditions are generally vague and obscure, and the personages whose names are associated with these sites have often only a mythical, or, to speak technically, an eponymic existence. This convenient phrase is used to convey the sug- gestion that a personal name has been evolved by popular speculation to account for some geographical term, the true meaning of which has not been understood.
A full discussion of this subject would form a curious and important chapter in what we may call the history of History.
Most nations have supposed themselves to be descended from some mythical or eponymic ancestor. The Lydians, the Phoenicians, the Pelasgians, the Dorians, the iEolians, the Hellenes, the Sicilians, and the Italians, have respectively traced themselves to mythical personages whom they called Lydus, Phoenix, Pelasgus, Dorus, iEolus, Hellen, Siculus, and Italus. Rome was said to have been built by Romulus;
^ Gough’s Camden, vol. ii. p. 197.
* Ibid. vol. i. p. 256.
^ Chalmers, Caledonia, vol. i. pp. 148, 176.
* The name of the Caturiges, “ the battle kings,” and the personal names of Catullus, Cadwallon, Cadwallader, St. Chad, and Katleen, contain this word. See Zeuss, Grammatica Celtica, vol. i. p. 6; Yonge, Christian Names,. vol. ii. p. 93; Wilson, Pre-historic Annals of Scotland, pp. 95, 412; Monk- house, Etymologies, p. 58.
® Monkhouse, Etymologies, pp. 6, 20.
Words and Places
288
Nineveh by Ninus; Memphis by Menes. When we come down to a later time we are encountered by the still more extravagant absurdities which fill the pages of Geoffrey of Monmouth, Laya- mon, Wace, Matthew Paris, and Matthew of Westminster, by whom the origin of all the nations and cities of Europe is traced to heroes of the Trojan war. We are gravely told that France takes its name from Francos, a son of Hector, and Britain from Brute, Prydain, or Pryd, a son of iEneas ; that Lisbon (Olisipo) was built by Ulysses; and Paris by the well-known son of Priam. Tours was the burial-place of a Trojan named Turonus, and Troyes was, of course, a colony from Troy. Nuremberg was built by Nero, and Prussia takes its name from one Prussus, a brother of Augustus. But these are modest pretensions when compared with that of the Scots, who claimed to be descended from Scota, a daughter of Pharaoh, while the Saracens are assigned to Sarah the wife of Abraham.^
These wild absurdities are mostly the creation of authors of a late date, and seldom conceal any esoteric truths. The case is often different with the earliest legends. Thus we are told that Pedias was the wife of Cranaus, one of the mythical kings of Attica. Under this disguise we recognise a statement of the fact that Attica is formed by the union of the mountain district (Kpavaos, rocky), and the plain (TrcSias, level).^
But the extravagances of Geoffrey of Monmouth, or the more recondite myths of Grecian history, concern us less nearly than the eponymic names which fill the earlier pages of Beda and the Saxon Chronicle. These narratives are still regarded as historical by the great mass of half-educated Englishmen,^ who seem to have hardly a conception that, in the ordinary school histories of England, the chapter On the arrival of the Saxons ” relates the deeds of personages who, in all probability, have only an eponymic existence.
To take a few instances. The name of Portsmouth un-
^ See a series of papers by Pott, in Kuhn's Zeitschrifi fiir Vergleich. Sprachforschungy entitled Mytho - Etymologie ; Grimm, Geschichte d. Deut. Spr. pp. 776, 784; Buckle, History of Civilisation^ vol. i. pp. 284- 286, 295; Wright, on Geo^rey of Monmouth^ Essays, vol. i. p. 216; Lewis, Credibility of Early Roman History, vol. i. p. 278; Welsford, English Language, pp. 6-16; Movers, Die Phonizier, part ii. vol. ii. p. 297; Ver- stegan. Restitution, p. 102; Davies, Celtic Researches, pp. 167, 169; Butt- mann, Mythologus, vol. i. pp. 219; vol. ii. pp. 172-193.
2 See a paper by J. K[enrick], in the Philological Museum, vol. ii. p. 359; Pott, Mytho-Etymologie, in Kuhn’s Zeitschrifi, vol. ix. p. 403.
* A well-known M.P. has lately, before a London audience, gravely re- produced the still more extravagant absurdities of Layamon and Geoffrey as veritable English history!
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doubtedly dates from the time when the commodious harbour was used as a portus by the Romans. But when we read in the Saxon Chronicle that Portsmouth derives its name from a Saxon chieftain of the name of Port, who landed there, we conclude at once that the name of Port is eponymic, that no such personage ever existed except in the imagination of some early historical speculator. Again, Carisbrooke, in the Isle of Wight, was anciently written Wiht-gara-hyrig, Respecting the etymology of this name there can be little doubt. ^ Wiht is a corruption of Vectis, the Roman name of the island. The inhabitants of the island would be called Wiht-ware, and the chief town of the island would be called Wiht-gara-byrig, “ the burgh of the men of Wight,’’ just as Canterbury, or Cant-wara-byrig, is the burgh of the men of Kent.” But when the Saxon Chronicle asserts that Wiht-gara-byrig was the burgh of a Saxon chief named Wihtgar, who was buried there, we can entertain no doubt that the name of Wihtgar, like that of Port, is eponymic.^ But we should undoubtedly be wrong were we to extend our scepticism to some other cases. For instance, we read in a later and more historical portion of the Saxon Chronicle, and in the Latin version which bears the name of Florence, that King Harthacnut drank himself to death at a feast which Osgod Clapha, one of the great nobles of Wessex, gave in his house at Lambeth to celebrate the marriage of his daughter Gytha with Tovi the Proud. In this case there is a very high probability that the I^ondon suburb of Clapham takes its name from the ham of the Saxon thane.
Or to take another case of a somewhat different character. Near Christchurch, in Hampshire, there is a place called Tyrrell’s Ford, around which a tradition used to linger that here Tyrrell passed on the day of the death of Rufus.^ There is nothing intrinsically improbable about this tradition, and Tyrrell is certainly not an eponymus. We may even go so far as to lend an ear to the assertion that Jack Cade was killed at Cat Street, near Heathfield in Sussex — especially when we find that the name was anciently written Cade Street.'*
Bearing in mind, then, the necessity of great caution as to the eponymic character of many of the heroes who figure in Beda and the Saxon Chronicle, we may proceed to enumerate
^ See p, 66, supra,
* See Latham, English Language, vol. i. pp. 37-40.
* Aubrey, quoted in Gough’s Camden, vol. i. p. 187.
* Ibid. vol. i, p. 295.
290 Words and Places
a few of the more conspicuous of the localised traditions of the Saxon conquest.
Whether the names of Hengist and Horsa are wholly eponymic, or whether there remains a substratum of historic fact, after all due concessions have been made to the demands of modem criticism, is a question respecting which scholars are not agreed. But we find their names in many places. Thus at Hengistbury Head on the Hampshire coast there is a large funeral barrow protected by an entrenchment; and a tumulus of flints at Horsted, in Sussex, is said to mark the sepulchre of Horsa.^ There is also a mound near the castle wall of Conisbrough which bears the name of Hengist. Camden asserts that it was his tomb; and we learn from Polydore Virgil that in the sixteenth century a local tradition still survived respecting a great battle which had been fought upon the spot.^ Henry of Huntingdon informs us that Hengist and Horsa fought a battle with the Piets and Scots at Stamford, in Lincolnshire. A local tradition affirms that the Saxons came from Kent by sea, and landed near Peterborough, after sailing up the Nene. This tradition is supported by the fact that at about two miles from Peter- borough there is an ancient entrenchment which goes by the name of Horsey Hill.^ There is a camp near Chesterford in Essex called Hingeston barrows.^ We have also the names of Hinksey near Oxford, anciently Hengestesige ; Henstridge in Somerset, anciently Hengestesrieg ; ^ Hinxworth in Hertfordshire, anciently Haingesteworde ; ,and Hengeston, anciently Hengestes- dun, in Cornwall. There are many other names of the same class. The numerous Horsleys and Hinkleys® are probably only forest leys or pastures for horse or steed (hengst). Other names, such as two Horsteads in Sussex, and one in Norfolk, Horsham in Sussex and in Norfolk, Horsey in Norfolk, and Horsell in Sussex, certainly seem specially to connect some person, or persons, bearing the name of Horsa with the two English counties of Sussex and Norfolk.*^
^ Lappenberg, Anglo-Saxon Kings, vbl. i. p. 72; Gough*s Camden, vol. i. PP- 311, 336.
^ Haigh, Conquest of Britain, p. 257. This is an uncritical work, but contains a large store of carefully collected, and sometimes valuable facts.
® Ihid. p. 209.
^ Gough’s Camden, vol. ii. p. 141.
® Codex Dipl. No. 1002.
® Horsley in Surrey and Derby, Horseley in Gloucester and Stafford, and three in Northumberland; Hursley in Hants (Horsanleah, Cod, Dipl, No. 180), and Hinkley in Leicester.
’ We have also Hinxton in Cambridgeshire, Hensting in Hants, Hincks- ford in Stafford, Hinxhill in Kent, Hinckford in Essex, Hinchcliff in
Historic Sites 291
According to the Saxon Chronicle the kingdom of the South Saxons was founded by Mile and his three sons, Cymen, Wien- cing, and Cissa. If these names are not altogether eponymic, as is probably the case, the account in the Chronicle receives very remarkable confirmation from local names. The landing is said to have taken place at Keynor in Selsea, anciently Cymenesora ^ or Cymen’s shore, where we may suppose the eldest son was left to guard the ships while the father and the brothers advanced into the interior.^ We find the name of iElle at Elstead in Sussex and Elstead in Surrey.^ The name of Lancing near Shoreham is certainly very remarkably coincident with that of Wlencing. The name of Cissa may be sought at Ciss- bury, a rude camp on a lofty hill near Worthing,^ as well as at another camp in Wiltshire called Chisbury ; also at Cissanham ^ in Hampshire, and at Chichester, anciently Cissan-ceaster, the “fortress of Cissa,” who, according to the Chronicle, succeeded in taking the old Roman city, and made it the capital of his kingdom of the South Saxons.®
The kingdom of Wessex was founded, we are told, by Cerdic, through whom Queen Victoria claims to be lineally descended from Woden ! The name of Cerdic we find at Charford, anciently Cerdices-ford, where was fought the decisive battle which gave the Saxons the supremacy as far west as the Hampshire Avon.'^ The name of Lichmere, the moor of corpses, not far from Charford, seems to mark the precise locality of the struggle, and is of a more historic character than many of the rest.® The nephew of Cerdic was the eponymic Wihtgar of Carisbrooke Castle, whose claims to an historical existence have already been discussed.
Yorkshire, as well as Horsey Isle in Essex, Horsall in Surrey, Horsdun in Hants, and many other similar names. See Haigh, Conquest of Britain, p. 151.
^ See Dugdale, Monast. Ang. vol. vi. p. 1163; Cod. Dipl. No. 992.
* Cumnor in Berks was anciently Cumenora. Cod. Dipl. No. 214; Dugdale, Monast. Ang. vol. i. p. 527.
® There was another ^Elle, founder of the Anglian kingdom of North- umbria. To him we may perhaps refer Ellakirk, Ellaby, Ellard, Ellerbeck, Ellerburn, and other Yorkshire names. Ellescroft is said to be the burial- place of the yElle who was killed in a battle with Regner Lodbrook. Worsaae, Danes, p. 33.
^ Gough’s Camden, vol. i. p. 270. ® Codex Diplom. No. 658.
® Lappenberg, Anglo-Saxon Kings, vol. i. pp. 104-106; Saxon Chronicle, A.D. 490. There are the remains of a Saxon camp at Chichester.
Saxon Chronicle, a.d. 519; Lappenberg, Anglo-Saxon Kings, vol. i. p. 109. The locality of Cerdices-ora, where the Chronicle (a.d. 514) asserts that Cerdic landed, has not been satisfactorily identified. Perhaps it may be Charmouth in Dorset. See Haigh, Conquest of Britain, p. 312; Turner, Anglo-Saxons, vol. i. p. 271. • Gough’s Camden, vol. i. p. 178.
Words and Places
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In Sewards tone near Waltham Abbey we have, perhaps, the name of Seward, king of the East Saxons; and Offa, another king of the same people, had a palace and a tomb at Offley near Hitchin.^ Another Offa, king of the Mercians, had a palace at Offenham in Worcestershire, and in 773 he is said to have gained a victory over Eadmund, king of Kent, at Otford on the Darent. The name of Wuffa, king of the East Angles, may perhaps be found at Ufford in Suffolk. Rendlesham, in the same county, was in the seventh century the residence of Redwald, another king of the East Angles. Among other Anglian traditions we are told that King Atla of Norfolk was the founder of Attlebury,^ and that the name of Bebbe, the queen of Ida of Northumbria, is to be found in Behban-burh, now Bamborough, near Berwick- upon-Tweed.^ Oswald, a Christian prince of Mercia, gave his name to Oswestry. The strong natural fortress of Edinburgh bears the name of Edwin, King of Northumbria, who extended his kingdom to the shores of the Forth.^
Ammianus Marcell inus, a more trustworthy authority than the earlier portion of the Saxon Chronicle, says that Valentinian sent over to Britain one Fraomarius, the king of the Bucino- bantes, an Alemannic tribe near Mayence. These names are perhaps preserved at Bramerton and four Buckenhams, all in Norfolk.^
Attempts have been made to identify the spots selected for an abode by other less distinguished settlers. The results are of course highly conjectural, to say the least, but they are perhaps sufficiently curious to justify the insertion of a few specimens in a note.®
^ Knapp, English Roots ^ pp. ii, 12; Gough’s Camden^ vol. ii. p. 66. ^ Lappenberg, Anglo-Saxon Kings, vol. i. p. 116.
* Ibid. p. 119; Saxon Chronicle, a.d. 547.
* Dixon, Fasti Ehor. vol. i. p. 44. ® Haigh, Conquest, p. 163.
® Thus we have —
Heorogar .
Halga .
Personal name. Ancient local name.
j' Harmodestone [Domesday)
Heremod . i Hermodesthorpe [Domesday) i Hermodesworde [Domesday)
Herigerby [Domesday) .
/Helgiby [Domesday)
J Helgefelt [Domesday) .
I Halgeforde [Cod. Dip. No. 483)
\Halganstok [Cod. Dip. No. 701)
f Waermundes hlaBw (Co<i.D«:/>.No. 1368) Warmlow, Worces.
' 1 Waermundesham [Cod. Dip. No. i8) . Mundham, Sussex.
Scylf . . Scylftun [Cod. Dip. No. 775) . . . Shilton, Oxford.
Bedca . Bedan ford [Saxon Chronicle ) . . . Bedford.
Childeric . Hildericesham [Domesday) . . . Hildersham, York.
At Navistock, in Essex, and Navesby, in Northamptonshire, we seem to
Modern local name. Harmstone, Lincoln. Harmthorpe, Lincoln. Harmondsworth, M id. Harrowby, Lincoln. Hellaby, Yorks. Hellifield, Yorks. Halliford, Mid. Halstock, Dorset.
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The British traditions conserved in local names are often more trustworthy than those of the Saxon period. There is a high probability that Maes Garmon near Mold was the scene of the famous Alleluia victory which was obtained by St. Garmon over the Piets. The good bishop placed the members of his church militant in ambush, and when the invaders were fairly entangled in the intricacies of the valley, a loud shout of Alleluia from the Welsh created a panic which enabled them to gain an easy but decisive victory.^
The Caradoc, the most picturesque of the Shropshire hills, is crowned by an earthwork bearing the name of Caer Caradoc, and here, as tradition affirms, was the stronghold of Caractacus.^
A camp near Verulamium, called Oister Hills, has been supposed to bear the name of the Roman general Ostorius,^ and we have a Caesar’s Camp near Farnham, and a Vespasian’s Camp in Wiltshire.
Chilham in Kent was anciently called /wZham, and is sup- posed to be the site of the battle fought by Julius Caesar, in which Laberius was slain. This supposition is curiously corroborated by a tradition which calls a large tumulus in the neighbourhood by the name of Julaber’s Grave.^
According to the Chronicles, it fell to the lot of Catigern, a Kentish chieftain, to oppose the earliest invasion of the Saxons. We are told that he fought a battle with the forces of Hengist and Horsa, in the neighbourhood of Aylesford. On the summit of the downs which overlook the battle-field there is a Celtic tomb, constructed of vast vertical and horizontal slabs of sand- stone. This, the most remarkable megalithic erection in the south-eastern portion of the kingdom, goes by the name of Kits Coty House, and may not improbably bear the name of the British prince.®
We also read that the body of Ambrosius, the successor of
have a name like that of Hnaef, which we find in the Traveller’s Tale. At Ripley, in Yorkshire^ we have a founder Hryp, and there are also local names which have been supposed to refer to the semi-historic personages who were called Air, Beonaet, Beowa, Brada, Cynfar, Fear, Hlyd, Hraefn, Hungar, Nasgel, Pendere, Sumaer, etc. — See Haigh, Conquest, pp. 150-160.
^ Beda, Hist. Ecc. book i. cap. 20; Haigh, Conquest, p. 238; St. John, Four Conquests of England, vol. i. p. 56; Rees, Welsh Saints, pp. 12 1, 122.
* The real name of Caractacus was probably Cradock, which is still a common surname in the west of England.
® Gough’s Camden, vol. ii. pp. 63, 73; Hartshome, Salopia Antiqua, P- 153-
* Gough’s Camden, vol. i. pp. 313, 353.
* Lappenberg, Anglo-Saxon Kings, vol. i. p. 73; Gough’s Camden, vol. i. PP- 311, 336.
Words and Places
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Vortigem, was buried^ according to his dying request, at Ambresbury on Salisbury Plain.^
In the year 945 the British population of Cumbria, under a chief who bore the name of Donald, made a final and unsuccess- ful attempt to shake off the Saxon yoke. A cairn at the summit of the desolate pass which leads from Keswick to Ambleside is called Dunmailraise, and in all probability it marks the precise scene of the struggle with Eadmund, as well as the burial-place of the British leader.^
In Strathearn there is a barrow which goes by the name of Carn-Chainichin, that is, the Cairn of Kenneth. This name no doubt preserves the memory of the burial-place of Kenneth IV. of Scotland, who in the year 1003 was slain by Malcolm II. in a battle which was undoubtedly fought in the near neighbour- hood of the cairn.®
An entrenchment on Barra Hill in Aberdeenshire bears the name of Cummin’s Camp, and thus preserves the memory of the defeat of Comyn, Earl of Buchan, by E^obert Bruce; ^ while Dairy, the ‘‘ king’s field,” is the spot where John of Lorn defeated Bruce, and from whence he tracked him with blood- hounds, as is so inimitably told in the Tales of a Grandfather.^
The names of Gibraltar and Tarifa have already been noticed.® Valetta, the port and chief town of Malta, preserves the name of John Parisot de la Vallette, the heroic Grand Master of the Knights of St. John. Together with the suburb of Vittoriosa it was founded in the year 1566, at the close of the memorable siege in which some 500 knights, assisted by 9000 men-at-arms, successfully withstood for four months the assaults of an army of 30,000 Turks, until at last there survived only 600 of the Christians, utterly worn out by the toils and perils of the siege.
The rulers of the ancient world seem to have anxiously desired to stamp their names upon cities of their own creation. Of the fifteen cities upon which Alexander the Great bestowed his name, only six retain it, and only two still possess any
^ Haigh, Conquest of Britain, p. 264. There is a large camp in Epping Forest called Ambresbury Banks>.
Palgrave, English Commonwealth, vol. i. p. 443 ; Ferguson, Northmen in Cumberland, pp. 15, 57.
® Chalmers, Caledonia, vol. i. p. 397.
* Ibid. vol. i. p. 90.
® Skene, History of the Highlanders, vol. ii. p. 109.
* See p. 90, supra.
’ Porter, Knights of Malta, vol. ii. pp. 70-166. One of the gates of Valetta is called the Port des Bombes, from its bearing the marks of the cannonade which took place when the French were attacked by the English and Maltese.
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geographical importance. The name of Alexandria in Egypt has been corrupted into the Arabic form of Iscanderieh^ and Alexandria in Bokhara is now Samercand. The city of Alex- andria which was built near the battle-field of Issus, though now a miserable village, has given a name to the Bay of Scanderoon or Iskenderoon. Alexandretta and Candahar still maintain an obscure existence.^
Antiochus and Seleucus, and the princes of their dynasties, followed the example of their great captain, but while the once important name of Seleucia^ has vanished from the map, Antioch,^ now Antakieh, still ranks among the cities of the East.
Philippi, now Felibedjik, built by the father of Alexander, would be now forgotten were it not for the epistle addressed by St. Paul to its inhabitants; and the mention of Philadelphia in the Apocalypse still causes us to bear in mind that it was built by Attalus Philadelphus, King of Pergamus.
The names of the Roman emperors are scattered over Europe, and some of them are found under very curious phonetic dis- guises. Who would expect, for instance, to find the name of Caesar in Jersey, a name which nevertheless is probably a corruption of Caesarea ? ^ In the East the phonetic changes have been less; the Caesareas in Palestine and Cilicia are now called Kaisariyeh; and Kesri, on the Dardanelles, is probably a corruption of the same name. The city of Caesarea Jol, built by Juba in honour of Augustus, is now Zershell in Algeria.® Two of the most curious of these transmutations are Caesarea Augusta into Zaragossa, and Pax Augusta into Badajoz. Augusta Emerita has been clipped down into Merida. Augustodunum is now Autun, and Augusta is Aosta and Augia. We find the same imperial name preserved in Augsburg, Augst in Canton Bale and Canton Zurich,® Aoust in the department of the Drome, Auch near Toulouse, and the Aust passage over the Severn.
^ Alessandria, an important fortress in Piedmont, takes its name from a Roman pope. Several places in Russia and Siberia are called Alexan- drov and Alexandria, from the Russian emperor. See Yonge, Christian Names, vol. i. p. 200.
* There were seven cities called Seleucia. The only one that retains the name is Seleucia in Cilicia, now Selefkieh.
2 There were ten cities called Antiochia.
* The names of Guernsey and Cherbourg are possibly to be traced to a similar origin, as well as Jerbourg in Guernsey; though it is more pro- bable that the first is Norse, and that the root of the two latter is the Celtic word Caer. Latham, Channel Isles, pp. 429, 452; Notes and Queries, second series, vol. vi. p. 163.
® Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography , s. v. Jol; Quarterly Review, xeix, p. 341.
* Meyer doubts this. See Ortsnamen des K. Zurich, p. 76.
Words and Places
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The names of Julius and Julia we have in Loudon (Julio- dunum), Beja in Portugal (Pax Julia), Truxillo in Spain (Turns Julia, or Castra Julia), Jiilich or Juliers (Juliacum), the valley of Zsil (Julia) in Hungary, pronounced Jil, Zuglio (Julium), Itucci (Victus Julius), and Lillebonne (Julia bona); while Friuli, Forli, and Frejus are all corruptions of Forum Julii. Orleans, Valenciennes, Grenoble, and Adrianople bear the names of the Emperors Aurelian, Valentinian, Gratian, and I Hadrian, by whom they were respectively founded or rebuilt. ] Forum Aurelii is now Fiora, Aurelia is Orleans,^ Claudii Forum | is Klagenfurt, and Pampeluna and Lodi (Laus Pompeii) bear | the name of Pompey. Tiberias, in Palestine, was built by the | younger Herod (Antipas) in honour of his imperial friend and master. Constantins Chlorus gave his name to Constance or Constantz on the Boden See, and to Coutances (Constantia) in | Normandy, where Roman antiquities are still occasionally j found. The surrounding district, now called the Cotantin, ! exhibits very curiously a parallel but independent corruption of the name Constantinum. Kustendje is the Turkish corrup- tion of Constantiana. Constantineh is the strongest place in Algeria. Constantine, the son of Constantins, had a palace a few miles from Treves, at a place now called Conz, a name which, after a long eclipse, is again becoming audible among men, in the novel character of a great railway junction. I could not but think, as I once whiled away a tedious hour in the waiting- room at Conz, of the waiting-rooms on the same spot once 1 thronged by the nobles of Western Europe, worshipping the I rising sun, who was afterwards to imprint his name on Con- ! stantinople, the new capital of the Roman world.
Of the modern cities which are thus inscribed with the dates of their foundation, St. Petersburg and Victoria, the capitals of two distant empires, occur at once to the memory. Ekaterinen- ! burg was founded by the great Empress Catherine. Christiana, i Christianstad, and Christiansand, are memorials of the subjec- ^ tion of Norway and Sweden to the crown of Denmark in the seventeenth century, during the reign of Christian IV. of Den- mark. The little kinglets of Germany, otherwise unknown to fame, have not been slow in endeavouring to rescue their obscure names from oblivion by a geographical immortality of this kind. As we fly past upon the railway the names of Carlsruhe, Fried- richshafen, Ludwigshafen, Ludwigsburg, or Wilhelmsbad may,
^ The form of the modern name suggests that the place must have ordinarily been called Aureliana, rather than Aurelia.
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perhaps, induce the traveller to endeavour to learn from his open Murray the deeds of the monarchs who have thus eagerly striven after fame.
A far more inconvenient practice prevails in the United States, where the names of popular Presidents have been bestowed so liberally on towns and counties as to occasion no little confusion. There are no less than 169 places which bear the name of Washington, 86 that of Jefferson, 132 that of Jackson, while Munroe and Harrison have respectively to be contented with 71 and 62 places named in their honour.^
^ See Notes and Queries, second series, vol. i. p. 508.
CHAPTER XIV
SACRED SITES
Local vestiges of Saxon heathendom — ^Tiw, Frea, Woden, Thor, Balder — Celtic deities — ^Teutonic demigods — Wayland Smith — Old Scratch — Old Nick — ^The Nightmare — Sacred groves and temples — Vestiges of Sclavonic heathendom — ^The Classic Pantheon — Conversion of the northern nations — Paulinus at Goodmanham — “ Llan ” and “ Kd ** — ^The hermits of the Hebrides — The local saints of Wales — Places of pilgrimage — ^The monastic houses.
Day after day^ as the weeks run round, we have obtruded upon our notice the names of the deities who were worshipped by our pagan forefathers. This heathenism is indeed so deeply in- grained into our speech, that we are accustomed daily, without a thought, to pronounce the sacred names of Tiw, Woden, Thunor, Frea, and Ssetere.^ These names are so familiar to us, that we are apt to forget how little is really known of the mytho- logy of those heathen times. We have, it is true, Beowulf and the Traveller’s Song, the verse Edda, and other parallel Norse and Teutonic legends, but the Anglo-Saxon literature dates only from the Christian period, and proceeds mostly from the pens of Churchmen, who naturally preferred to recount thau- maturgic histories of Christian saints, and willingly allowed the pagan legends to die away out of the memories of men. So small, in fact, are the materials at our disposal for an account of the Anglo-Saxon Pantheon, that the very name of Saetere is conjectural — it is not found in any literary document till long after the extinction of the Anglo-Saxon paganism — and it would almost appear that the name, the attributes, and the culte of this deity have been constructed in comparatively recent times, in order to illustrate the assumed etymology of the word Satur- day.^ Our knowledge of Anglo-Saxon mythology being thus
^ On the names of the days of the week, see Mone, Gesch. Heidenthums, vol. ii. p. no; Turner, Anglo-Saxons, vol. ii. p. 217; Trench, Study of Words, p. 93; Muller, Alt-deut. Relig/'p^, 86-88; Mannhardt, GoUerwelt, vol. i. p. 262.
* That the worship of Ssetere was very local, appears also from the fact that Saturday, as a name for the last day of the week, is found only in the Frisian, Anglo-Saxon, and other Low-German languages. Laugardagr, the Norse equivalent for Saturday, the Swedish Lor dag, and the Danish
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scanty^ it will bear to be supplemented by the information which may be derived from local names.
We may, in the first place, arrive at some vague estimate of the relative mythological importance of the various Anglo- Saxon deities by means of a comparison of the number of places which severally bear their names, and which were probably dedicated to their worship. Judging by this standard, we con- clude that Tiw,^ Frea, and Ssetere, had but a small hold on the religious affections of the people, for Tewesley in Surrey, Great Tew and Tew Dunse in Oxfordshire, Tewin in Hertfordshire, Dewerstone ^ in Devon, Frathorpe and Friday thorpe ^ in York- shire, Fraisthorpe in Holderness, Freasley^ in Warwickshire, three Fridays treets in Surrey, and one in Suffolk, Satterleigh in Devon, and Satterthwaite in Lancashire, seem to be the only places which bear their names.
But of the prevalence of the worship of Woden and Thunor, we have wide-spread evidence. Wednesbury in Staffordshire, Wisborow Hill in Essex, Wanborough in Surrey, Wanborough in Wilts, two Warnboroughs in Hampshire, Woodnesborough in Kent^ and Wilts, and Wembury in Devon, are all corrup-
and Norwegian Ldversdag, mean the washing-day, or laving-day; if, indeed, they do not refer to the Scandinavian deity Loki. See Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, pp. 115, 226; Kemble, Saxons, vol. i. p. 372; Yonge, Christian Names, vol. i. p. 439 ; Donaldson, English Ethnography, p. 67.
^ This word was used as the name of the Deity by all the Aryan nations. The Sanskrit diva, the Greek 6e6s, the Latin deus, the Lithuanian dewas, the Erse dia, and the Welsh dew are all identical in meaning. The etymo- logy of the word seems to point to the corruption of a pure monotheistic faith. The Sanskrit word dydus means the expanse of blue sky, the heaven. This sense is retained in the Latin word dies, and in the phrase sub Jove, in the open air. (Horace, Odes, lib. I. i. 25.) Jupiter, Diupiter, or Diespiter, is the “ heavenly father.” See Pictet, Orig. Indo-Eur. part ii. PP* 653, 663, 664; Bunsen, Philos, of Universal History, vol. i. p. 78; Edinburgh Review, vol. xciv. pp. 334-338; Mannhardt, Gdtterwelt, vol. i- PP* 57, 69; Buttmann, Mythologus, vol. ii. p. 74; Muller, Alt-deut. Relig. pp. 223, 225; Kelly, Curiosities, p. 29; Max Muller, Lectures, second series, p. 425.
^ In Saxe Weimar we have Tisdorf and Zeisberg; in Hesse, Diensberg and Zierenberg; in Bavaria, Zierberg; in Zeeland, Tisvelae; in Jutland, Tystathe and Tiislunde; in Sweden, Tistad, Tisby, Tisjo, and Tyved. Grimm, Deutsche Mythol. p. 180; Muller, Alt-deut. Religion, p. 87; Vilmar, Ortsnamen, p. 244; Knobel, Volkertafel, p. 41; Mannhardt, Gdtterwelt, vol. i. p. 262.
® An elaborate account of Frekkenhorst, a chief German seat of the worship of Frigge, or Frea, is given by Massmann, in Dorow’s Denkmdler, pp. 199-203. We have also Frekeleve near Magdeburg, Freyenwald on the Oder, and Freyenburg in Belgium. Muller, Alt-deut. Rel. p. 121; Salverte, Essai sur les Noms, vol. ii. p. 238.
^ Fraisthorpe and Freasley are more probably Frisian settlements.
® Close to Woodnesborough is a tumulus called Winsborough.
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tions of the Anglo-Saxon word W odnesheorh, a name which indicates the existence of a mound or other similar erection dedicated to Woden. ^ Wanstrow in Somerset was formerly WodnestreoWy and Wansdike in Wiltshire was Wodnesdic. Woden Hill on Bagshot Heathy Wonston in Hampshire, Wam- brook in Dorset, Wedneshough in Lancashire, Wampool in Cumberland, Wansford in Northamptonshire, and another place of the same name in the East Riding, Wanstead in Essex, Wamden in Bucks, Wadley in Berks, two Wansleys and Wednes- field in Staffordshire, Wendon in Essex and in Somerset, Wedes- ley in Derbyshire, Wednesham in Cheshire, Wanthwaite in Cumberland, and Wonersh in Surrey, with other more doubtful names of the same class, enable us to form some estimate of how wide was the diffusion of Woden’s w'orship.^
The Scandinavian Thor was worshipped by the Anglo-Saxons under the name of Thunor, a name identical with the English thunder and the German equivalent Bonner? We find traces of the worship of the Saxon god in the names of Thundersfield in Surrey, two places called Thundersleigh in Essex, and one in Hants, as well as Thundridge in Herts, and Thunderhill in SurreyA To the name of Thor we may assign Thursley in
^ Kemble, Saxons ^ vol. i. p. 344; Haigh, Conquest of Britain^ p. 141; Morris, Local Names ^ p. 8; Guest, in Archceolog. Journal, vol. xvi. p. 107.
? In Germany we have Godesberg, near Bonn, anciently Wodenesberg; Gudensberg, in Hesse, anciently Wuodenesberg, as well as another Gudens- berg, and a Gudenberg; also Godensholt, anciently Wodensholt, in Olden- burg;. Woensdrecht, near Antwerp, and Vaudemont, in Lorraine, anciently Wodani Mons. In Denmark we find Odensberg; Onsberg, anciently Othensberg; Onsjo, anciently Othansharet ; Onsala, anciently Othansale ; Onsley, anciently Othanslef; Odinsey, on the island of Funen; and in Norway, Onso, anciently Odinsey. Grimm, Deut. Myth. pp. 133, 140, 144; Vilmar, Ortsnamen, p. 244; Bender, Deutschen Ortsnamen, pp. 107, 108; Mone, Gesch. Heidenthums, vol. i. p. 269; vol. ii. p. 154. On the occur- rence of the names of Woden and Thunor in the Saxon Charters, see Kemble, Codex Dip. vol. iii. p. xiii.
® The identity of Thimor and Indra has been proved by Mannhardt, by a laborious comparison of the Teutonic and Indian myths. Germ. Mythen, pp. 1-242. The names also of Indra and Donnor, different as they may seem, are, no doubt, ultimately identical. We have seen (p. 161, supra) that udra and udan are related Sanskrit words, meaning water. The first gives us the name of Indra, the second that of Donnor or Thunor, both of whom are the storm and rain gods ; both were born out of the water, both fill the rivers, and pour the milk of the cloud-cows of heaven upon the earth. See Mannhardt, Germ. Myth. pp. 3, 38, 50, 143, 147, 213, 216; Mannhardt, Gdtterwelt, vol. i. p. 61; Max Muller, Lectures, second series, p. 430.
*The little scholars who enjoy catching a great scholar tripping, may amuse themselves with Mr. Kemble's attempt to find an allusion to the Thunderer’s Hammer, in the Hammer ponds in Surrey; the fact being that the name originated from some ironworks now disused.
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Surrey, Thurleigh in Bedfordshire,’ Kirby There in Westmore- land, Thurscross in Yorkshire, Thurston in Suffolk, Thurstable and Thurlow in Essex, Thursfield in Staffordshire, Thursford in Norfolk, Tursdale in Durham, Thurshelton in Devon, Thursby in Cumberland, Thurso in Caithness, Torness in Shetland, and Thorigny in Normandy, all of which, as we have seen, are in regions settled more or less by Scandinavian colonists In some of these cases it is probable that the name may have been derived from some Viking who bore the name of Thor.^ The Anglo-Saxon names, however, are not liable to this ambiguity, since it does not appear that any Anglo-Saxon — more timid, or more reverent than the Northman — ever dared to assume the name of the dreaded Thunor.
Names like Balderby or Balderton, may probably be derived from the personal name Balder, rather than from that of the deity. Pol, another form of the name of the god Balder, is probably to be found in such names as Polbrook, Polstead, Polsden and Polsdon, as well perhaps as in Bell Hill, and Hill Bell. The last two names, however, are, more probably, vestiges of a still earlier cultus — Celtic, or possibly Semitic.^ It has been thought that there must have been some original connection, etymologic or mythologic, between the Syrian Baal, the Celtic Bel or Belen, the Sclavonic Biel-bog, and the Teutonic Pol. To the Celtic deity we may probably assign the local names of Belan, near Trefeglwys in Montgomeryshire, Belan near Newtown, two Belan Banks in Shropshire, and the Baal Hills in Yorkshire, besides three mountains called Belch in the
1 There is a remarkable tumulus in the middle of the village called Bury Hill.
‘ On the Continent we find Thuneresberg, in Westphalia, where stands a sacred oak, under which, to this day, an annual festival is held; Don- nersberg, near Worms, anciently Thoneresberg ; Donnerkaute and Don- nersgraben in Hesse; Donnersreut in Franconia; Donnerbiihel in Berne; Donnersted in Brunswick; Donershauk in Thuringia; Thorsborg in Gothland; Donnerschwee, anciently Donerswe {ve, holy), in Oldenburg; Donnersbach in Styria; Torslunde {lundr^ a sacred grove) and Thorsbro in Denmark; and Thorsbiorg, Thorshofn, and others, in Norway. Grimm, Deutsche Mythol. pp. 64, 155, 169; Grimm, Namen Dormers; Vilmar, Ortsnamen, p. 244; Mannhardt, Germanische Mythen, p. 235.
^ In the case of several villages called Thursby this is the more probable supposition.
* Grimm, Deutsche Mythol. pp. 208, 580; Leo, Vorlesungen, vol. i. p. 205; Thierry, Hist. Gaulois, vol. ii. p. 77, 78; Muller, Alt-deutsche Religion, pp. 253, 256; Ferguson, Northmen, pp. 95, 98; Mone, Geschichie Heidenthums, vol. ii. p. 345; Barth, Druiden, p. 69. The Beltane fires are still kept up in the Isle of Man, and in Yorkshire. Train, Isle of Man, vol. i. p. 328.
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Vosges and the Black Forest.^ Balerium, the ancient name of the Land’s End, may possibly be due to the Phoenicians. Bel Tor in Devon may be either Teutonic, Celtic, or Semitic. Several of the Devonshire Tors seem also to bear names derived from a primeval mythology. Mis Tor and Ham Tor have been sup- posed to bear Semitic names derived from Misor, the moon, and Ham or Ammon. The name of Hessary Tor can with greater confidence be referred to the Celtic deity Esus or Hesus,^ mentioned by Lucan —
Teutates, horrensque feris altaribus Hesus,
Et Taranis Scythicae non mitior ara Dianae.*
The Celtic deity Taith referred to in these lines under the name of Teutates must not be confounded with the Teutonic Tiw, though the names are probably not unconnected. Places called Tot Hill, Toot Hill, or Tooter Hill, are very numerous, and may possibly have been seats of Celtic worship.^
The word Easter, as we learn from Beda, is derived from the name of Eostre,^ or Ostara, the Anglo-Saxon goddess of spring, to whom the month of April was sacred. As in other instances, the Catholic clergy seem to have given the heathen festival a Christian import, and to have placed ‘‘ Our Lady ” on the throne previously occupied by the virgin goddess of the spring.^ She seems to have bestowed her name on two parishes in Essex which are called Good Easter,*^ and High Easter; we find also the more doubtful names of Easterford in the same county, Easterleake in Nottinghamshire, and Eastermear in Hampshire.
The name of Hel, the mistress of the gloomy under-world, seems to be confined to Yorkshire; it may possibly be pre- served in the names of Hellifield, Hellathyrne, Helwith, two
^ Mone, Geschichte Heidenthums, vol. ii. p. 337; Barth, Druiden, p. 86. Cf. Piderit, Ortsnamen^ p. 300.
® Cf. the Sanskrit Asura^ the supreme, self-existent Spirit, a name pro- bably derived from a root ^=esse. A statue inscribed with the name of Esus was exhumed at Paris. Pictet, Orig. Indo-Eur. part ii. p. 655; Barth, Druiden, p. 71; Prichard, Researches^ vol. iii. p. 185; Thierry, Hist. Gaulois, vol. ii. p. 78.
® Pharsalia, book i. 1. 445.
* See Davies, in Philolog. Trans, for 1855, p. 219; Barth, Druiden^ p. 64; Thierry, Hist. Gaulois, vol. ii. p. 78; Prichard, Researches^ vol. iii. p. 185.
® Cf. the Sanskrit wste= Aurora, from a root ush, to burn or glow. Hence the Greek the Latin auster^ the south, and the English east. Grimm, Deut. Mythol. p. 266; Neus, in Zeitschrift fiir Deut. Myth. vol. iii. pp. 356-368; Pictet, Orig. Indo-Eur. part ii. pp. 672-674; Leo, RectitudineSj p. 206.
® Mayhew, German Life^ vol. ii. pp. 332, 377.
7 In Domesday this name appears in the form Estra. Good Easter is probably the god Eostre.
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Healeys, Healigh, and Helagh, all in Yorkshire.^ Helwell in Devonshire is probably only the covered well, the word hell originally meaning only the ‘‘ covered ” place. Thus a wound heals when it becomes covered with skin. The heel is that part of the foot which is covered by the leg. A helmet covers the head. The hull is the covered part of a ship. To hele potatoes is to clamp or tump them. In Kent to heal a child is to cover it up in its cradle, and to heal a house is to put on the roof or cover- ing. A hellier is a slater.
Of the mythic heroes of Scandinavian legend, the name of Weland, the Northern Vulcan, who fabricates the arms of the heroes of the early Sagas, is preserved at a place in Berkshire called Waylandsmith. Here, appropriately placed at the foot of that sacred Hill of the White Horse, which from immemorial times has borne the colossal symbol of Saxon conquest, there still stands the structure which our ancestors called Weland’s forge, ^ a huge megalithic monument, consisting of two chambers constructed of upright stones and roofed with large slabs. Here the hero-smith was supposed to fabricate shoes for the sacred horse. Though bearing a Saxon name, and connected with a Saxon legend, it is doubtless only a Celtic grave.^
The name of Eigil, the hero-archer, is probably to be sought at Aylesbury, formerly Mgleshyrig, as well perhaps as at Ayles- ford, Aysworth, and Aylstone.** Asgardby and Aysgarth, how- ever, probably refer to Asgard, the home of the gods.
Curious legends often linger round the numerous places called the Devil’s Dyke, the Devil’s Punchbowl, and the like,® and results, not without value, might doubtless be obtained by a comparative analysis of the names of the various celebrated witch mountains.®
^ We have Helgraben, Helwald, Helleberg, and other similar names in Germany. Panzer, Deut. Myth. p. 275.
* In the charters the place is called Wdandes Smidde^ Wayland’s Forge. Codex Diplom. No. 1172.
® Grimm, Deutsche Mythol. p. 350; Wilson, Pre-hist. Annals of Scot- land, p. 210; Scott, Kenilworth, chap. xiii. and note; Singer, Wayland Smith, p. XXXV ; Wright, in Journal of Archceolog. Association, vol. xvi. PP- 50-58; Kemble, Saxons in England, vol. i. pp. 419-421; Grimm, Heldensage, pp. 41, 322, 323; Gough’s Camden, vol. i. p. 221.
* Grimm, Deutsche Mythol. p. 349; Kemble, Saxons, vol. i. p. 422.
® We find Teufelstein near Durkheim, Teufelsberg in Bavaria, and Teu- felsmaner in Austria. See Panzer, Deut. Myth. pp. 46, 100, 204; Piderit, Ortsnamen, p. 301. There are also many places called Drachenfels, Drachenbogen, Drachenkammer, etc. Panzer, Deut. Myth. p. 293 ; Grimm, Heldensage, p. 316.
* The chief of these are the Blocksberg, or Brocken, in the Hartz ; several Blocksbergs in Mecklenburg; the Huiberg near Halberstadt; the
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A dark and nigged rock in the Lake District bears the name of Scratch Meal Scar. Here we may perhaps detect the names of two personages who figure in the Norse mythology, Skratti, a demon, and Mella, a weird giantess.^ There is also a Scratta Wood on the borders of Derbyshire. The demon Skratti still survives in the superstitions of Northern Europe. The Skratt of Sweden, with a wild horse-laugh, is believed to mock travellers who are lost upon the waste, and sundry haunted rocks on the coast of Norway still go by the name of ‘‘ Skrattaskar.’’ ^ In the north of England the name of Skratti continues to be heard in the mouths of the peasantry, and the memory of Old Scratch,” as he is familiarly called, may probably be yet destined to survive through many future Christian centuries, in company with ‘‘ Old Nick,” who is none other than Nikr,^ the dangerous water-demon of Scandinavian legend. This dreaded monster, as the Norwegian peasant will gravely assure you, demands every year a human victim, and carries off children who stray too near his abode beneath the w’aters. In Iceland also, Nykr, the water-horse, is still believed to inhabit some of the lonely tarns scattered over the savage region of desolation which occupies the central portion of the island.
Many similar traces of the old mythology are to be found in that well-stored antiquarian museum, the English language. In the phrase ‘‘ Deuce take it,” the deity Ti w still continues to be in-
Horselberg in Thuringia; the Bechelsberg in Hesse; the Koterberg and the Weckingstein in Westphalia; the Kandel, the Heuberg, and the Staffelstein in the Black Forest; the Bischenberg and the Biichelberg in Alsace; the Blakulla (Black Mountain) in Sweden; and the Blaakolle in Norway. See Thorpe, Northern Mythology^ vol. i. p. 243; Grimm, Deut, Myth, p. 1004. Hanenkamm and Hanenbuck in Bavaria were places of heathen worship. Mone, Gesch. Reid. vol. ii. p. 218. Heidenberg is the name of a hill near Zurich, down which on winter nights a headless horse- man is seen to ride. Meyer, Ortsnamen, p. 165.
^ Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, p. 493 ; Ferguson, Northmen, p. 99 ; Edinburgh Review, vol. cxi. p. 386. Mella, when tired of the company of Skratti, had a separate abode on Mell Fell; unless, indeed, this name be Celtic rather than Scandinavian, and allied to the word mull, a head- land, which we have in the Mull of Cantyre and other names. Or the name of Mell Fell may be from the Icelandic melr, a sandy hill. There is a Moelifell in Iceland.
2 Grimm, Deut. Myth. p. 447; Thorpe, Northern Mythology, vol. ii. p. 95 ; vol. i. p. 250. The name of Skratti is found also in the Sarmatian legends. In Bohemian Screti means a demon. See Latham, English Language, vol. i. p. 360.
^ Norwegian ndk, Swedish neck, German nix, plural nixen, English nixies, and old Nick. The name of the River Neckar probably comes from the same root. Thorpe, Northern Mythology, vol. i. p. 246; vol. ii. p. 20; Grimm, Deut. Myth. p. 456; Kemble, Preface to Translation of Bedwulf, p. xvii; Kemble, Saxons, vol. i. pp. 389-392; Laing, Heims- kringla, vol. i. p. 92; Baring-Gould, Iceland, p. 149.
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voked.^ The Bogie, with whose name nurses are wont to frighten children, is probably Bogu, the Sclavonic name of the Deity/ and the name of Puck has been referred to the same source.^ The nursery legend of ‘‘ Jack and Jill ’’ is found in the younger Edda, where the story of Hjuki (the flow) and Bil (the ebb), the two children of the Moon, is seen to be merely an exoteric version of the flowing and ebbing of the tides. ^ The morning gossamer is the gott-cymarj the veil or trail left by the deity who has passed over the meadows in the night. The word brag has an etymological connection with the name of Bragi,^ the Norse god of song and mirth, while the faithful devotees of Bragi fall after awhile under the power of Mara,® a savage demon, who tortures men with visions, and crushes them even to death, and who still survives, though with mitigated powers, as the Night- mare of modern days.*^
There is another class of names of sacred sites, those, namely, which are not associated with the names of particular deities.
The name of Redruth in Cornwall is written in old deeds Dre- druith, the town of the Druids.® From the Celtic nemet, a sacred grove, we may deduce the name of Nymet Rowland in Devonshire, and of Nismes, anciently Nemausus, in Provence, as well as many ancient Gaulish names, such as Nemetacum or Nemetocenna (Arras), Vernemetum, and Tascinemetum.^
^ Compare Augustine, De Civitate Dei, book xv. cap. 23, “ quosdam daemones quos dusios Galli nuncupant.**
* Sanskrit bhaga, god, the sun. Pictet, Orig. Indo-Europ. part ii. p. 654 ; Edinburgh Review, vol. xciv. p. 332. See, however, Davies, in Philolog. Proceed, vol. vi. p. 136; Notes and Queries, second series, vol. xi. p. 97.
^ De Belloguet, Ethnog, vol. i. p. 222.
♦Grimm, Deut. Myth. p. 679; Muller, AU-deut. Relig. p. 161; Baring- Gould, Iceland, p. 189.
* Diefenbach, Vergleich. Worterb. vol. i. p. 266 ; Grimm, Deut. Myth. p. 215; Baring-Gould, Iceland, p. 161; Notes and Queries, second series, vol. V. p. 32.
♦Thrupp, Anglo-Saxon Home, p. 263; Grimm, Deut. Myth. p. 215; Kelly, Curiosities, p. 240; Laing, Heimskringla, vol. i. p. 92.
’ On the subject of the Teutonic and Scandinavian mythology, as illus- trated by local names, the reader may consult Jacob Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, passim; Buttmann, Die Deutschen Ortsnamen, pp. 162-169; Kemble, Anglo-Saxons, vol. i. pp. 243-422; Ferguson, Northmen in Cum- berland, pp. 28, 95; Bender, Die Deutschen Ortsnamen, pp. 107, 108; Leo, Anglo-Saxon Names, p. 5; Panzer, Deutsche Mythologie; Forstemann, Ortsnamen, p. 172; Worsaae, Danes and Norwegians, p. 69. A list of mythologie names in Tyrol is given in a paper by Zingerle, in the Germania, vol. V. p. 108.
* Pryce, Arch. Cornu- Brit. s.v.
* Sanskrit nam, to worship, Greek vi/j.(a, Irish nemhta, holy, Latin nemus, a grove, Gaulish nemeium, a temple, Brezonec nemet, a sacred grove. Pictet, Orig. Indo-Europ. part ii. p. 691; Zeuss, Gram. Celt. vol. i.
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Lund and Lundgarth, both in Holdemess, are probably from the Norse lundr, a sacred grove.^ The name of Hoff, near Appleby, seems to be from the Anglo-Saxon and old Norse hof, a temple.^ The vast inclosure of Silbury is probably the holy hill.® The names of Wydale, Wigthorp, and Weighton, as well as Weihbogen in the Tyrol, Wyborg and Wisby, all of them holy places, probably come from the Norse ve, a sacred place.**
Heligoland — ^which means holy island land ’’ — ^has been with great probability identified ® with the insula oceani, which is described by Tacitus as the seat of the secret rites of the Angli and other adjacent continental tribes. Of the numerous places bearing the name of Holywell, Holy Island, and Holy Hill,® many were probably the sites of an ancient pagan cultus, to which, in accordance with Gregory’s well-weighed instructions, a Christian import was given by Augustine and his brother missionaries.'^ The churches of St. Martin and St. Pancras,
p. 186; Astruc, Languedoc^ p. 439; Davies, in Philolog. Trans, for 1857, p. 91; Gliick, Kelt. Namen, p. 75; Adelung, Mithridates, vol. ii. p. 65; Maury, Hist, des For its, p. 160.
^ Lundey Island in the Bristol Channel, and Lundholme near Lancaster may be from this source, but more probably from the Norse lundi, a puffin. There is an islet called Lundey on the Icelandic coast. Baring- Gould, Iceland, p. 244.
^ There are two places called Hof in Iceland.
^ Selig, holy. See Poste, Brit. Res. p. 263. So Jerusalem is called by the Arabs El Kuds, the holy. Compare also the name of Bethel, the “ house of God,” with the Beit-allah of Mecca, and the Baetulia of early Phoenician worship. Behistun is the abode of the gods, from the Sanskrit Bhaga. See Edin. Rev. vol. xciv. p. 333; Stanley, Jewish Church, p. 59.
* We have the Gothic veihs, holy, and veihan, to consecrate ; the old High German vih, a sacred grove, or temple, the German weihnacht, Christmas, and the Anglo-Saxon wiccian, fascinate, whence the English word witch. Pictet, Orig. Indo-Europ. part ii. p. 643; Grimm, Deutsche Mythol. p. 581; Yonge, Christian Names, vol. ii. p. 238; Diefenbach, Ver- gleich. Worterbuch, vol. i. pp. 137, 138; Mone, Geschichte Heidenthums, vol. i. p. 269; Thaler, in the Zeitschrift fiir Deut. Myth. vol. i. p. 286; Adelung, Mithridates, pp. 144, 169.
® See Latham, Germania, pp. 145, 146; Eth. of Brit. Is. p. 155; Grimm, Deutsche Myth. p. 21 1; Crichton, Scandinavia, vol. i. p. 75; and a paper by Maack, in the Germania, vol. iv.
® Holy Hill is the highest point of ground in Kent. Cf. the numerous Heiligenbrunns and Heilbrunns in Germany, to the waters of many of which a supernatural efficacy was supposed to attach. The original meaning of holy is healing. See Grimm, Deutsche Myth. p. 553; Pictet, Orig. Indo-Europ. vol. ii. p. 647.
’ Gregory, “ diu cogitans,” came to the conclusion that “ fana indo- lorum destrui minime debeant,” but that the idols should be destroyed, and the temples, well sprinkled with holy water, should be supplied with relics, so that the gens Anglorum “ ad loca quae consuevit familarius concurrat.” Beda, Hist. Ecc. lib. i. c. 30; Gregorii Magni Epistol. lib. xi. ep. Ixxvi. ; Thorpe, Northern Mythology, vol. i, p. 268.
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at Canterbury, as well as Westminster Abbey and St. Paul’s Cathedral, were built on the sites of heathen temples, and are instances of this practice of enlisting, in favour of the new faith, the local religious attachments of the people.^
It would demand more space than the interest of the subject would warrant, to trace the local vestiges of the worship of the Sclavonian deities. They have left their names scattered far and wide over Eastern and Central Europe — a testimony to the long duration and great difficulty of the process by which the Sclavonic nations were converted to Christianity. Thus the name of Radegast, a god of light, is found at two places called Radegast in Mecklenburg Schw’erin, one of the same name in Anhalt Dessau, and another in Oschatz ; as well as at Radegosz in Posen, Radihoscht in Bohemia, the village of Rodges near Fulda in Hesse, anciently written villa Radegastes, and many villages bearing the names of Radibor, Radeburg, Radensdorf, and the like.^ We also find traces of the worship of Swjatowit,^ a deity with attributes similar to those of Radegast, of Juthr- bog^ the god of spring, of Ciza® the goddess of fertility, of Mita ® a malevolent cynoform deity, of Marsana ^ the Sclavonic Ceres, and of Perun,® a deity who corresponds to the Scandi- navian Thor.
The subject of names derived from the eastern and classic mythologies is too extensive for discussion in this place. It would require a chapter, or even a volume to itself. There are many such places in India, Syria is full of them, they abound in Italy and Greece. Thus Calcutta and Calicut are the Kali- Ghauts, the steps, or landing-places by the river-side, where the great festival of Kali was celebrated. Baalbec was the chief seat of the worship of Baal, the ruins of whose temple, with its substructure of colossal stones, is still one of the wonders of the
^ See Rees, Welsh Saints, p. xii. ; Dixon and Raine, Fasti Eboracenses , p. 3; Stanley, Memorials of Canterbury, p. 21; Pauli, Pictures of Old England, p. 12.
* Buttmann, Deutschen Ortsnamen, pp. 164, seq. ; Vilmar, Ortsnamen, p. 246.
® At Zwettnitz in Bohemia, Schautewitz in Pomerania, and Zwitto in Brandenburg. Buttmann, Ortsnctmen, p. 162; Maclear, Hist, of Christian Missions, p. 33.
* Hence Jiiterbogk, a large town near Berlin. Buttmann, Ortsnamen, p. 168.
* Hence Zeitz, near Leipsig. Buttmann, Ortsnamen, p. 168.
* Hence Mitau in Courland.
’ Hence Marzahn near Berlin, Marzahna near Wittenberg, and Marzana in Illyria. Buttmann, Ortsnamen, p. 169.
* Grimm, Deut. Myth. p. 156.
Words and Places
308
world.^ Panium^ now Banias, was a sanctuary of Pan.^ The shores of the Mediterranean were covered with places bearing the names of the deities of Greece and Rome. More than a dozen might be enumerated taking their names from Neptune or Poseidon, of which Pa^estum, the ancient Posidonia, is the only one that still retains both its name and any human interest. Hercules seems to have been deemed the most powerful protector of colonies, for from him we find that some thirty or forty places were named Heracleia, Heracleopolis, or Herculaneum.^ Twenty, under the protection of Apollo, were called Apollonis or Apollonia, and fifteen bore the name of Pallas Athene, all of which, except Athens,^ have sunk into obscurity.
It is pleasant to leave these dry bones of a dead paganism, and turn to the names which speak to us of the first propagation of Christianity in our native land. One of the most striking scenes in the whole history of missionary enterprise was enacted in the East Riding of Yorkshire, at Goodmanham, or God- mundingaham,® a mile from Weighton ® where, as the name implies, stood a large heathen temple. Beda tells that the Bishop Paulinus presented himself on this spot before Edwin, King of the Northumbrians, and urged eloquently the claims of the new faith. Coifi, the pagan high-priest, to the surprise of all, proclaimed aloud that the old religion had neither power nor utility. ‘‘ If,’’ said he, “ the gods were of any worth they would heap their favour upon me, who have ever served them with such zeal.” The demolition of the temple was decreed, but with a lingering belief in the ancient faith, all shrank from incurring the possible hostility of the old deities, by taking part in its destruction. ‘‘As an example to all,” said Coifi, “ I am myself ready to destroy that which I have worshipped in my folly.” Arming himself with spear and sword, he mounted on
^ In the Old Testament we find many traces of the Canaanitish worship still lingering in Palestine. For a long time, probably, the devotions of the people were attracted by the old idolatrous sanctuaries, such as Baal Gad, Baal Hermon, Baal Tamar, Baal Razor, Jaal Judah, Baal Meon, Baal Perazim, and Baal Shalisha. In the genealogies of families we find evidence of the same lingering superstitions. Thus in the family of Saul we find persons bearing the names of Baal, Eshbaal, and Meribaal. Stanley, Jewish Churchy p. 291.
® Robinson, Biblical Researches, vol. iii. p. 348.
® Monterchi, in Umbria, is Mons Herculis.
^ In this case the name of the city is probably the source from which the cognomen of the goddess was derived.
® The home of the mund, or protection of the gods, or from the Norse godi, a priest; hofs godi, a temple priest. Grimm. Deut. Myth. p. 78.
* The “sacred inclosure,” see pp. loi, 306, supra. The ruins of the temple are to be seen near Goodmanham Church.
Sacred Sites
309
a horse, and having profaned the temple by casting his lance against it, it was set on fire and consumed.^
Godney near Glastonbury, Godmanchester in Huntingdon- shire, Godmanstone in Dorset, Godley in Cheshire, Godstow near Oxford, Godshill in the Isle of Wight, and Godstone in Surrey, were probably, like Godmundham, pagan sites conse- crated to Christian worship.
The prefix llan which, as we have seen,^ occurs so frequently in Cornwall, Wales, and the border counties, often enables us to detect the spots which were the first to be dedicated to pur- poses of Christian worship.
The Cymric llan is replaced in Scotland and Ireland by the analogous Gadhelic word kiL Originally this denoted only a hermit’s “ cell,” though it was afterwards used to mean the ‘‘ church,” of which the hermit’s cell was so often the germ.
The numerous village-names which have this prefix kil possess a peculiar interest. They often point out to us the earliest local centres from which proceeded the evangelisation of the half-savage Celts; they direct us to the hallowed spots where the first hermit missionaries established each his lonely cell, and thence spread around him the blessings of Christianity and of civilisation.
In Ireland alone there are no less than 1400 local names which contain this root, and there are very many in Scotland also.^ In Wales and the neighbouring counties, a few names occur with the prefix kil instead of llan. These names may probably be regarded as local memorials of those Irish missionaries, who about the fifth century resorted in considerable numbers to the shores of Wales
It seems to have been by means of these Irish hermits that the fierce Scandinavians who settled in the islands off the Scottish coast were brought to submit to the gentle influences of Christianity. The Norse name for these anchorite fathers was Papar. Three islets among the Hebrides,^ two in the Orkneys,®
^ Beda, Hist. Ecc. lib. ii. c. 13. Cf. Lappenberg, Anglo-Saxon Kings, vol. i- P- 153; St. John, Four Conquests, vol. i. p. no; Turner, Anglo-Saxons, vol. i. pp. 356-360; Dixon and Raine, Fasti Eboracenses, vol. i. pp. 40, 41; Maclear, History of Missions, p. 114.
^ See p. 175, supra.
^ E.g. Kilmore, Kilkenny, Killin, Icolmkill.
* We find Kilcwm, Kilsant, and Kilycon in Carmarthen; Kilgarran and Kilred in Pembrokeshire ; Kilkenin, Kiluellon, and Kilwy in Cardigan ; Kilowen in Flint; Kilg\m in Cheshire; Kilmersdon and Kilstock in Somerset; Kildare and Killow in Yorkshire; and Kilpisham in Rutland.
® Pabba off Skye, Pabba off Harris, and Pabba off Barra.
• Papa Westray and Papa Stronsay.
Words and Places
310
two in the Shetlands,^ and others among the Faroes and off the coast of Iceland^ bear the names of Pabba, or Papa, the “ Father’s isle.” In the Mainland of Orkney, and again in South Ronald- shay, we find places called Paplay,^ the ‘‘ hermit’s abode,” and at Enhallow, and at one of the Papas in the Orkneys, the ancient cells are still preserved.^
In that part of England which was settled by the Danes, the missionary efforts seem to have been more of a parochial character. We find the prefix kirk, a church, in the names of no less than sixty-eight places in the Danelagh, while in the Saxon portion of England we find it scarcely once.^ Kirby means church-village, and the Kirbys which are dotted over East Anglia and Northumbria speak to us of the time when the possession of a church by a village community was the exception, and not, as is now happily the case, the rule. These names point to a state of things somewhat similar to that now prevailing in Australia or Canada, where often but a single church and a single clergyman are to be found in a district fifty miles in circumference.® Thus we may regard these Kirbys distributed throughout the Danelagh as the sites of the mother churches, to which the surrounding parishes, whose names contain no such prefix, would bear a filial relationship.
Joined with the prefixes kit and Ran we find not unfrequently the name of the apostle of each wild valley or rocky islet — ^the first Christian missionary who ventured into the mountain fastnesses to tame their savage denizens. From the village- names of Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, it would be almost possible to compile a hagiology of these sainted men, who have been canonised by local tradition, though their names are seldom to be found in the pages of the Bollandists.
In a few of these cases, where the same name is repeated again and again, we can only infer the fact of the dedication of the church to some saint of widely extended fame. Thus the repute of St. Bridget has given rise to no less than eighteen Kilbrides in Scotland alone. At Icolmkill, or Iona,® as well as
^ Papa Stour and Papa Little.
* There is a Papil in Unst, and a Pappadill in Rum.
® Wilson, Pre-historic Annals ^ p. 486; Dasent, Burnt Njal, vol. i. p. viii. ; Worsaae, Danes ^ p. 231.
* It is found over the whole track of the Norsemen from Kirkwall in the Orkneys, to Dunkerque in Flanders, and Querqueville in Normandy.
® See Dixon and Raine, Fasti Ehoracenses , vol. i. p. 27.
* Iona, the chief monastery and seminary of North Britain, and the burial-place of innumerable kings and saints, was originally bestowed on
Sacred Sites
311
at Inchcolm^ Colonsay, and Kirkcolm, we find the name of St. Columba^ the great apostle of the Piets, who is said to have founded an hundred monasteries in Ireland and Scotland. So the name of St. Ciarran, the apostle of the Scoto-Irish, and the founder of a monastic rule, is found at Kilkiaran in Islay, as well as at Kilkerran in Ayrshire and in Connemara. But a very large number of these saint-names are locally unique, and the parishes which bear such names are almost always the most ancient, their ecclesiastical position being that of the mother parishes, affiliated to which are the churches dedicated to saints in the Romish calendar.^ Hence these village-names may fairly be adduced as evidence in any attempt to localise the scene of the labours of these primitive missionaries.^
Our space would fail were we to attempt such a commemora- tion in this place ; it may suffice to indicate the names of a few of the local saints who are associated with some of the more familiar localities. Thus the watering-place of Llandudno takes its name from St. Tudno, a holy hermit who took up his abode among the rocks of the Orme’s head. Llanberis, now the head-quarters of Welsh tourists, commemorates the labours of St. Peris, an apostolically-minded cardinal.^ In the case of Beddgelert, the legend of the hound Gelert, which Spencer has so gracefully inshrined in verse, must give place to the claims of St. Celert, a Welsh saint of the fifth century, to whom the church of Llangeller is consecrated. Llangollen is so called from St. Collen, a man more fortunate, or unfortunate, than the majority of his brethren, in that a Welsh legend of his life has come down to us, recounting the. deeds of valour which he performed when a soldier in the Roman armies ; how he became Abbot of Glastonbury, and finally retired to spend the remainder of his days in a cave scooped out in that rugged wall of cliff which bounds the lovely valley on which the saint has bestowed his name.^
The name of Merthyr Tydfil commemorates the spot where the heathen Saxons and Piets put to death the martyr Tydfyl, daughter of the eponymic King Brychan, who is asserted
St. Columba by one of the Pictish kings. Lappenberg, Anglo-Saxon Kings, vol. i. p. 132; Maclear, History of Christian Missions, pp. 84-90.
^ Rees, Welsh Saints, pp. 57, 59.
* Great use has been made of local names in the Lives of the Cambro- British Saints, by the Rev. W. J. Rees, and in the Essay on the Welsh Saints, by Professor Rice Rees, who enumerates 479 local saints.
* Rees, Welsh Saints, p. 302.
* See Borrow, Wild Wales, vol. i. p. 57; Rees, Welsh SairUs, p. 302.
312 W ords and Places
by Welsh legend to have given his name to the county of Brecknock.^
St. David or St. Dewi was a Welsh prince, whose preaching is compared to that of St. John the Baptist. He lived on herbs, and clothed himself in the skins of beasts. Llanddewi Brefi marks the spot where, at a synod assembled for the purpose, he refuted Pelagius. He was buried at his see of Ty Ddewi, “ the house of David,” a place which the Saxons call St. Davids The names of St. Asaph,^ the apostle of North Wales, and of St. Maughold or Macull, the apostle of the Isle of Man, are to be found on the maps of the countries where they laboured. A few more of these names are appended in a note.^
At Kirkcudbright and elsewhere we find the name of St. Cuthbert, a shepherd-boy who became Abbot of Melrose, and the Thaumaturgus of Britain. St. Beya, an Irish virgin, lived an
^Borrow, Wild Wales ^ vol. iii. p. 41 1; Haigh, Conquest of Britain ^ p. 251; Rees, Camhro-British Saints^ pp. 602-608; Rees, Welsh Saints, p. 15 1.
* Alban Butler, Lives of the Saints, March i; Lappenberg, Anglo-Saxon Kings, vol. i. p. 133; Rees, Camhro-British Saints, pp. 402-448; Rees, Welsh Saints, pp. 43-56, 1 91-201.
® Rees, Welsh Saints, p. 265.
* The names of are attributed to
Llangattock, Brecknock, and'j
Monmouth v St. Cadoc, a martyr.
Cadoxton, Glamorgan . . . . )
Llanbadern, Radnor, and Cardigan St. Padern, an Armorican bishop
who came to Wales.
Llangybi, near Caerleon Caergybi, at Holyhead . Llanilityd, Glamorgan . Illston, Glamorgan .... Crantock, Cardigan .... Llangadog, Carmarthenshire .
Llanidloes
Ardfinnan, in Tipperary Inisfallan, in Kerry .... Kilbar, in the Isle of Barra St. Kenelm’s Well . . . .
Killaloe
Perranzabuloe, or St. Perran in Sabulo, Cornwall, a church buried in the drifting sand .... Padstow, i.e. Petrocstow, in Corn- wall
Penzance, i.e. Saint’s Pleadland.
I St. Cybi.
I St. Illtyd, an Armorican.
St. Carannog.
St. Gadoga, a British saint of the fifth century, who died in Brittan3^ St. Idloes.
I St. Finian the leper, a royal saint.
St. Bar.
St. Kenelm, a Mercian prince, mur- dered in a wood by his aunt at the age of seven.
St. Lua.
\ St. Piran, a bishop consecrated by I St. Patrick for a mission to Corn- j wall.
\ St. Petroc, one of St. Patrick’s mis* I sionary bishops.
St. Anthony.
The legends of St. Cadoc, St. Padern, St. Cybi, St. Illtyd, and St. Carannog will be found at length in Rees, Camhro-British Saints, pp. 309, 396, 465, 495, 502; and those of the others, in AJban Butler, Lives of the Saints, and Rees, Welsh Saints,
Sacred Sites
313
ascetic life at St. Bees^ where her shrine was long a great place of pilgrimage. We find the name of St. Jia^ another female saint, at St. Ives in Cornwall. There is another place called St. Ives, which takes its name, we are told, from St. Ivon,^ a Persian bishop; but how his body reached Huntingdonshire, where it was miraculously discovered by a ploughman in the year 1001, tradition sayeth not. The neighbouring town of St. Neots bears the name of St. Neot, who was a relative of King Alfred.2
St. Malo takes its name from St. Maclou, as the chronicles call him. He appears to have been one of those wandering evangelists ® of whom Ireland and Scotland sent forth so many in the sixth century, and we may perhaps conjecture that his real name was McLeod, and that his cousin St. Magloire was really a McClure.** A more historical personage is St. Gall (the Gael), the most celebrated of the successors of St. Columba — he occupied high station in France, and founded in the uncleared forest the Scotch abbey of St. Gallen, from which one of the Swiss cantons takes its name.® Another Swiss canton, that of Glams, belonged to a church founded by St. Fridolin, an Irish missionary, and dedicated to St. Hilarius, a saint whose name has been corrupted into Glarus.® St. Goar built a hut beneath the dangerous Lurlei rock, at the spot which bears his name, and devoted himself to the succour of shipwrecked mariners.^ St. Brioc fled from the Saxon invaders of Britain, and founded a monastery at St. Brieux in Brittany.® The town of St. Omer was the see of St. Audomar, a Suabian favourite of Dagobert, and St. Cloud was the scene of the retirement of St. Hlodowald,
^ Cf. Gough’s Camden^ vol. ii. p. 248. There is a third St. Ivo, the popular saint of Brittany. He was an honest lawyer, and hence he is represented as a black swan in certain mediaeval verses in his honour : —
“ Sanctus Ivo erat Brito Advocatus, sed non latro Res miranda populo.”
Jephson, Tour in Brittany, p. 81.
^ Turner, Saxons, vol. i. pp. 549-553-
^ A catalogue of some of these Irish saints will be found in Alban Butler, Lives of the Saints, vol. xii. pp. 415-432.
* For an account of St. Magloire see Ansted, Channel Islands, p. 324 ; Rees, Welsh Saints, p. 256.
* Maclearj History of Missions, pp. 146-152; Lappenberg, Anglo-Saxon Kings, vol. i. p. 183.
® Lappenberg, Anglo-Saxon Kings, vol. i. p. 183.
’ Maclear, History of Christian Missions, p. 132.
* Jephson, Tour in Brittany, p. 31.
Words and Places
3H
one of the saints whose royal birth facilitated their admission to the honours of the calendar.^
Legends more or less marvellous often attach to names of this class.
The history of St. Br)mach, who gave his name to Llanfrynach, is, to say the least, somewhat remarkable! We are gravely told how, for lack of a boat, he sailed from Rome to Milford Haven mounted on a piece of rock, and how among other proofs of supernatural power he freed Fishguard from the unclean spirits, who by their bowlings had rendered the place unin- habitable.^
Sometimes we have legends of a totally different class, as in the case of St. Heliers in Jersey. Here, we are told, was the retreat of St. Helerius,® who mortified the flesh by standing on sharp stones with spikes pointed against his shoulders, and others against his breast, in order to prevent him from falling backwards or forwards in his weariness.^
A far more picturesque legend is that which accounts for the name of the castle of St. Angelo at Rome. We are told that, in the time of Gregory the Great, while a great plague was desolating Rome, the pontiff, walking in procession at the head of his monks, and chaunting a solemn litany for the deliverance of the city, saw, or thought he saw, St. Michael, the destroying angel, standing upon the very summit of the vast mausoleum of Hadrian, in the act of sheathing his avenging sword. The plague ceased, and thenceforward, in memory of the miracle, the tower bore the name of the castle of the angel, whose efiigy, poised upon its summit in eternal bronze, is pointed out as a perpetual evidence of the truth of the legend.^
Where the reputed burial-places of celebrated saints have become great places of pilgrimage, the name of the saint has often superseded the original appellation. Thus the reputed tomb of Lazarus has changed the local name of Bethany to El Lazarieh; and Hebron, the place of interment of Abraham,
^ Santarem, Santiago, and Santander, in the Peninsula, take their names respectively from St. Irene, a holy virgin, St. James, and St. Andrew; Archangel, in Russia, from St. Michael; Marsaba, on the Dead Sea, from the celebrated St. Saba, hermit and abbot.
2 Rees, Cambro-British Saints ^ pp. 289-298; Rees, Welsh Saints ^ p. 156.
® Not to be confounded with St. Hilarius, Bishop of Poitiers, or with Hilarius, Bishop of Arles, to whom Waterland has assigned the authorship of the Athanasian Creed.
* Latham, Channel Islands, pp. 320-323.
® Dean Milman has ruthlesdy pronounced this picturesque legend to be inconsistent with Gregory’s own letters. History of Latin Christ, vol. i. p. 409.
Sacred Sites
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who was called the friend of God, is now called by the Arabs El Khalil, or “ the friend.” ^ St. Edmund’s Bury in Suffolk was the scene of the martyrdom of St. Edmund, king of the East Angles. He was taken prisoner by Ingvar the Viking, and having been bound to a tree, he was scourged, and made a target for the arrows of the Danes, and was finally beheaded.^ St. Osyth in Essex is said to bear the name of a queen of the East Angles who was beheaded by the Danes.® St. Albans claims to be the scene of the sufferings of the protomartyr of Britain, and the still 'more marvellous legend of Dionysius the Areopagite finds a local habitation at St. Denis, the burial-place of the kings of France. The name of Santiago de Compos tella in Spain has been curiously formed out of the Latin phrase Sancto Jacobo Apostolo.^
Of the great monastic edifices of later ages, most of which are now demolished wholly ©r in part, or devoted to other purposes, we find traces in the names of Axminster, Leominster, Kidder- minster, Westminster, Warminster, Bedminster, Beaminster, Sturminster, Upminster, and others. Minster is the Anglo- Saxon form of the Low Latin Monasterium. From the same word come the names of several places called Monstiers,Mous tiers, or Moutier in France and Switzerland, and various Monastirs in Greece and Thessaly. The bay of Aber Beniguet in Brittany takes its name from the lighthouse which the Benedictine monks maintained to warn vessels from the dangerous rocks upon the coast.® Miinchen, or Munich as we call it, takes its name from the warehouse in which the monks (German monche) stored the produce of their valuable salt-mines at Reichenhall and Salzburg. Abbeville was the township belonging to the Abbot of St. Valeri, seized and fortified by Hugh Capet.® Numerous names, such as Nunthorpe and Nuneaton, Stapleford Abbots and Abbots Langley, Bishopsley and Bishops Stortford, Monkton and Monklands, Preston and Prestwich, Priors Hardwick, Buckland Monachorum, Kingsbury Episcopi, and Toller Fratrum, record the sites of the long-secularised possessions of nuns, abbots,
^ Stanley, Jewish Church, p. 488.
* Matthew of Westminster, Roger Wendover, and John of Brompton, apud Lappenberg, Anglo-Saxon Kings, vol. ii. p. 39; St. John, Four Con- quests, vol. i. p. 253; Sharon Turner, Saxons, vol. i. pp. 521-525.
® Gough’s Camden, vol. ii. pp. 124, 138. The name seems to be eponymic. Osyth means “ water channel,” and would correctly characterise the natural features of the spot.
* Yonge, Christian Names, vol. i. p. 54.
* Ibid. vol. i. p. 382.
* Palgrave, Normandy and England, vol. iii. p. 56.
Words and Places
3^6
priors^ bishops, friars, monks, and priests.^ The word Temple often appears as a prefix or suffix in village-names, and marks the possession of the Templars: such are Cressing Temple and Temple Roydon in Essex, Temple Chelsing and Temple Dinsley in Herts. Terregles in Dumfries is a corruption of Terra Ecdesice, a phrase which is usually translated into the form of Kirklands, or corrupted into Eccles, The name of Aix-la- Chapelle ^ reminds us of the magnificent shrine erected over the tomb of Charlemange, and Capel Curig of the chapel of a humble British saint.
^ Sion House, near Kew, was a nunnery. Gough’s Camden^ vol. ii.
p. 88.
2 Mr. Burgon, in his amusing letters from Rome, has recently pointed out an undoubted etymology for this word chapel^ which has so long puzzled etymologists. It seems to have been the name given to the arched sepulchres excavated in the walls of the catacombs of Rome, which after- wards became places where prayer was wont to be made. The Low Latin capelia is the hood or covering of the altar. Hence our words cape and cap. See Wedgewood, Dictionary of English Etymol. vol. i. p. 322. The in- scription in the catacombs which gave Mr. Burgon the clue is literatim as
follows: “ EGO SECUNDA FECI CAPELLA BONE MEMORIE FILIEM MEEM
SECUNDINEM QE RECESSIT IN FIDEM CUM FRATREM SUM LAURENTIUM IN PACE RECESERUND.’* Letters from Rome^ p. 206. Any of our young schoolboy readers may correct the grammar, and then translate the inscription for their sister’s benefit.
CHAPTER XV
PHYSICAL CHANGES ATTESTED BY LOCAL NAMES
The nature of geological changes — The valley of the Thames once a lagoon filled with islets — Thanet once an island — Reclamation of Romney Marsh — Newhaven — Somersetshire — The Traeth Mawr — ^The Carse of Gowrie — Loch Maree — The Fens of Cambridgeshire — The Isle of Axholme — Silting up of the Lake of Geneva — Increase of the Delta of the Po — Volcanoes — Destruction of ancient forests — Icelandic forests — ^The Weald of Kent — Increase of population — Populousness of Saxon England — ^The nature of Saxon husbandry — English vine- yards— Extinct animals; the wolf, badger, aurochs, and beaver — Ancient salt works — Lighthouses — Changes in the relative com- mercial importance of towns.
Vast geological operations are still in progress on this globe; continents are slowly subsiding at the rate of a few inches in a century; while new lands are uprising out of the waters, and extensive deltas are in process of formation by alluvial deposi- tion. But these changes, vast as is their aggregate amount, are so gradual that generations pass away without having made note of any sensible mutations. Local names, however, form an enduring chronicle, and often enable us to detect the pro- gress of these physical changes, and occasionally even to assign a precise date to the period of their operation.
Thus it is not difficult to prove that the present aspect of the lower valley of the Thames is very different from what it must have been a thousand years ago. Instead of being confined within regular banks, the river must have spread its sluggish waters over a broad lagoon, which was dotted with marshy islands. This is indicated by the fact that the Anglo-Saxon word ea or ey, an island, enters into the composition of the names of many places by the river-side which are now joined to the mainland by rich pastures. Bermondsey, Putney, Chertsey, Moulsey,^ Iffley, Osney, Whitney, and Eton or Eaton, were all islands in the lagoon. The Abbey Church of West- minster was built for security on Thorney Island, and the eastern portion of the water in St. James’s Park is a part of that arm of the Thames which encircled the sanctuary of the monks and the palace of the Anglo-Saxon kings. The name Chelsea is a con- ^ The island at the confluence of the Mole and the Thames.
317
3i8 Words and Places
traction of chesel-ea, or “ shingle island/’ and in its natural features the place must have once resembled the eyots which are found in the Thames near Hampton. In Leland’s time there was a shingle bank at the mouth of the Axe in Devon called the Chisille. The long ridge of shingle which joins the Isle of Port- land to the mainland is also called the Chesil bank; and the name of the Isle of Portland proves that the formation of this ridge took place in modem times, subsequent to the period when Anglo-Saxon gave place to modem English.
The Isle of Thanet was formerly as much an island as the Isle of Shepp^y is at the present time. Ships bound up the Thames used ordinarily to avoid the perils of the North Foreland by sailing through the channel between the island and the main- land, entering by Sandwich and passing out by Reculver, near Heme Bay. Sandwich, or sandy bay,” was then one of the chief ports of debarkation; but the sands have filled up the wick or bay, the ancient port is now a mile and a half distant from high-water mark; and the ruins of Rutupiae, now Rich- borough, the port where the Roman fleets used to be laid up, are now suiTounded by fine pastures. Ebbfleet, which is now half a mile from the shore, was a port in the twelfth century,^ and its name indicates the former existence of a tidal channel ” at the spot.^ This navigable channel, which passed between the Isle of Thanet and the mainland, has been silted up by the deposits brought down by the River Stour. Stourmouth — ^the name, be it noted, is English, not Anglo-Saxon — is now four miles from the sea, and marks the former embouchure of this river. Chiselet, close by, was once a shingle islet, and the name of Fordwick,^ five miles farther inland, proves that in the time of the Danes the estuary must have extended nearly as far as Canterbury.^
Romney Marsh,^ which is now a fertile tract containing 50,000 acres of the best pasturage in England, must, in Saxon
^ Stanley, Memorials of Canterbury ^ p. 13.
^ The Celtic name of Durlock, more than a mile from the sea, means “ water lake,” and indicates the process by which the estuary was converted into meadow.
® Fordwick means in Danish the bay on the arm of the sea. (See p. 129, supra.) Fordwick was anciently the port of Canterbury, and a corporate town. Gough’s Camden, vol. i. p. 356. 'Norwich in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries was “ on the banks of an arm of the sea.” Lyell, Principles of Geology, p. 307.
Beyond Canterbury is Olantigh, anciently Olantige, whose name shows that in Saxon times it must have been an ige, or island.
® From the Gaelic word ruimne, a marsh. The name of Ramsey, in the Fens, is derived from the same source.
Physical Changes 319
times, have resembled the shore near Lymington — a worthless muddy flat, overflowed at every tide. Old Romney, New Romney, and Scotney, were low islands which afforded sites for the earliest fisher-villages. The name of Winchelsea, or gwent- chesel-ey, enlightens us as to the process by which these islands were formed — namely, by the heaping up of shingle banks at the seaward edge of the muddy flats. ^ The recent origin of this tract of land, and the gradual progress of its reclamation, are moreover curiously illustrated by the fact that over the greater portion of the marsh the local names present a marked contrast to the ancient names which so abound in Kent. They are purely English, such as Ivychurch, Fairfield, Brookland, and Newchurch. In a few of the more elevated spots the names are Saxon or Celtic, as Winchelsea or Romney, while it is only when we come to the inland margin of the marsh that we meet with a fringe of ancient names like Lymne or Appledore,^ which show the existence of continuous habitable land in the times of the Romans or the Celts.^
Lymne, the ancient Portus Lemanus, is the /catvb? of
Ptolemy, and was one of the three great fortified harbours which protected the communications of the Romans with the Continent. The ruins of the Roman port are now nearly two miles from the sea. The names of West Hythe, which is more than a mile from the shore, and of Hythe, which is only half a mile, chronicle the silting up of the backwater which formed the ancient port, and the successive seaward advances of the shingle since the time when the Saxon word hithe was super- seded by its English equivalent haven.” ^
The name of Newhaven commemorates a geological event of an opposite character. Lewes was anciently a port,® and Hamsey was a marshy island in the estuary of the River Ouse, which then entered the sea at Seaford,® but a great storm in
^ Diingeness, at the southern extremity of Romney Marsh, is a long spit of shingle, derived from the disintegration of the cliffs at Beachy Head, and has for the last two centuries been advancing seaward at the rate of nearly twenty feet per annum. Lyell, Pruiciples^ p. 316.
^ From the Celtic dwr^ water. Appledore was once a maritime town. See Gough’s Camden^ vol. i. p. 368.
^ The same is the case in the Fens. The portions reclaimed at an early period show English names surrounded by a border of Danish names on the north, and of Saxon names on the south. The same is the case with the Delta of. the Rhone. Places lying to the north of the old Roman road between Nismes and Beziers have Celtic names, while all those to the south of the road have names of Romance derivation. Astruc, Hist. Languedoc^ PP* 374, 375; Lyell, Principles, p. 258.
• \Vright, Wanderings of an Antiquary, p. 123.
^ See p. 136, supra. • Probably from the Danish fjord.
Words and Places
320
the year 1570 permanently changed its course, and the port of Newhaven has arisen at the new outlet of the river. ^
Pevensey and Selsey are now no longer islands, the channels which divided them from the mainland having been silted up. The name of Selsey (seal’s island) reminds us of the remote period when seals lay basking on the Sussex coast.^
The central part of Somersetshire presents many names which show great physical changes.® In Celtic times Stick- iinch, Moorlinch, and Charlinch were islands, as was the case in the Saxon period, with Muchelney, Rodney, Godney, Athel- ney, Henley, Bradney, Horsey, Hackney, Othery, Middleney, Thorney, Chedzoy, Westonzoyland, Middlezoy, and West- holme, while the pasture-land called Meare must once have been the bed of an inland lake.
The whole district of the Traeth Mawr or '' Great Sand ” in North Wales was an estuary at no very remote period. The action of the sea may be distinctly traced along the rocks near Tremadoc."* Almost every rocky knoll on the wide flat pasture- land bears the name of ynys, or island,® and must once have been surrounded by every tide, as is still the ease with Ynys-gifftan and Ynys-gyngar. Ynys Fawr and Ynys Fach, the ‘‘ Great Island ” and the “ Little Island,” are now two miles from the sea.® From Ynys Hir, now some way inland, Madoc is said to have sailed in quest of unknown lands. Ywern, two miles from the sea, was once a seaport, as is proved by the parish register of Penmorpha.^
The tract of land near Dartmouth called New Ground was only reclaimed from the river a century ago.® Roodey, which now forms the race-course at Chester, was formerly an island surrounded by the River Dee, like the Inches, or islands of Perth. The Carse of Gowrie is the bed of an ancient arm of the sea, which having been nearly filled up by the alluvium of the Tay
^ The name of Newport in South Wales reminds us in like manner of the decay of the Roman port at Caerleon, and the erection of another a little nearer to the sea; and Newport in the Isle of Wight has taken the place of an older harbour near Carisbrooke.
^ See Gough’s Camden^ vol. i. p. 268.
® See Macaulay, History of England, vol. i. p. 604.
* The site of this town was reclaimed from the sea in 1813 by means of an embankment made by Mr. Maddock.
^ E.g, Ynys-gwely, Ynys-ceiliog, Ynys-calch, Ynys-tywyn.
® Ynys Gwertheryn, south of Harlech, is a mile inland.
’ Davis, On the Geology of Tremadoc, in Quarterly Journal of the Geo- logical Society for May 1846, vol. ii. pp. 70-75; Chambers, Ancient Sea Margins, p. 20.
* Murray, Handbook to Devonshire and Cornwall, p. 58.
Physical Changes 321
and the Earn, has, in common with the whole of Central Scot- land, undergone an elevation of twenty to thirty feet since the Roman period. Inchture, Inchmartin, Inchmichael, Inchyra, and Megginch were, as the names witness, islands in this frith.^ In the plain a little below Dunkeld, a hillock containing 156 acres goes by the name of Inchtu thill, the island of the flooded stream,’’ showing that the Tay must once have surrounded it.^
This secular elevation of Scotland may also be traced by means of the raised beaches on the western coast. Here also we meet with a remarkable etymological confirmation of the results arrived at on independent grounds by geological in- I vestigators. “ Loch Ewe, in Ross-shire, one of our salt sea ! lochs,” says Hugh Miller, receives the waters of Loch Maree — a noble freshwater lake, about eighteen miles in length, so little raised above the sea level that ere the last upheaval of the land it must have formed merely the upper reaches of Loch Ewe. The name Loch Maree — Mary’s Loch ^ — is evidently mediaeval. And, curiously enough, about a mile beyond its upper end, just where Loch Ewe would have terminated ere the land last arose, an ancient farm has borne, from time immemorial, the name of Kinloch Ewe — the head of Loch Ewe.” ^
Start Island, in the Orkneys, has in comparatively recent times been separated from the Island of Sanda. The word start means a tail, as in the case of Start-point, in Devon, and the redstart or red-tailed bird. Thus the name of this island ' proves that it was once only a long promontory projecting from the Island of Sanda.^
The Fens of Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire constitute a vast alluvial flat of more than a thousand square miles in extent, and must formerly have been a shallow bay six times as large as the Wash, which has been silted up by the deposits of the Nen, the Welland, and the Ouse. ;
The local names in this district show, as might have been expected, great alterations in the distribution of land and water. Holbeach is now six miles from the coast, and Wisbeach,
^Chambers, Ancient Sea Margins, p. 19; Geikie, On the Date of the Last Elevation of Central Scotland, in Quarterly Journal of Geological Society, vol. xviii. p. 227. An anchor has been dug up at Megginch, and at the farm of Inchmichael a boat-hook was found at a depth of eight feet below the soil, and twenty feet above the present high watermark.
^ Chambers, Ancient Sea Margins, p. 44.
^ Or, perhaps, from the Celtic mor, the sea.
* Hugh Miller, Lectures on Geology, p. 23.
^ Lyell, Principles, p. 302.
Words and Places
322
the beach of the Wash or Ouse, is seven miles inland.^ The ancient sea-wall, now at a considerable distance from the shore, has given rise to the local names of Walsoken, Walton, and Walpole.
The tide does not now come within two miles of Tydd, and almost all the present villages in the Fen country were originally islands, as is shown by their names. Thus Tilney, Gedney, Stickney, Ramsey, Thomey, Stuntney, Southery, Nomey, Quaney, Helgae, Higney, Spinney, Whittlesey, Yaxley, Ely, Holme, Oxney, Eye, Coveny, Monea, Swathesey, Sawtrey, Raveley, Rowoy, and Wiskin,^ are no longer, as they once were, detached islands in the watery waste; the great inland seas of Ramsey Mere and Whittlesey Mere are now drained, and the flocks of wildfowl have given place to flocks of sheep.
The Isle of Axholme or Axelholme, in Lincolnshire, is now joined to the mainland by a wide tract of rich comland. The name shows that it has been an island during the time of the Celts, Saxons, Danes, and English. The first syllable Ax is the Celtic word for the water by which it was surrounded. The Anglo-Saxons added their word for island to the Celtic name, and called it Axey. A neighbouring village still goes by the name of Haxey. The Danes added tiolniy the Danish word for island, to the Saxon name, and modem English influences have cormpted Axeyholme into Axelholme, and contracted it into Axholme, and have finally prefixed the English word Isle, The internal evidence afforded by the name is supplemented by historical facts. In the time of Henry II. the island was attacked and taken by the Lincolnshire men in boats, and so late as the time of James I. it was surrounded by broad waters, across which the islanders sailed once a week to attend the market at Doncaster.^
We can trace similar changes on the Continent. The city of Lisle is built on Uisle, once an island. Montreuil sur Mer, formerly Monasteriolum super Mare, was built in the year 900, on the banks of an estuary which has been silted up, and the town is now separated from the sea by many miles of alluvial soil.^ A Danish fleet once sailed up to Havent, which is now
^We have also Landbeach, Waterbeach, Asbeach, Over (Anglo-Saxon ufer, a shore), and Erith {ora, shore, and hithe, haven), which are all places on the edge of the present Fen district.
^ Both syllables of this name are Celtic. It is evidently the “ water island.” See p. 158, supra,
® Smiles, Lives of the Engineers, vol. i. p. 37.
* Palgrave, England and Normandy, vol. ii. p. 57.
Physical Changes 323
ten miles from the sea. Wissan is now four miles from the sea. The name is a corruption of the Norse Wissant or Witsand, and refers to the “ white sand ” which has choked up the harbour from which, in all probability, Caesar first sailed for Britain.^ St. Pierre-sur-le-Digue, near Bruges, is six miles from the present seawall, and the town of Damme, which once possessed a harbour and considerable maritime trade, is now an inland agricultural town.^ Notre Dame des Ports, at the mouth of the Rhone, was a harbour in the year 898, but is now three miles from the sea.® Ostia, as the name implies, and as we are expressly told, was founded at the mouth of the Tiber, but the alluvial matter from the Apennines brought down by the yellow river has now advanced the coast line three miles beyond Ostia.^
There are but few islands in the world whose names do not contain some root denoting their insular character. A re- markable exception to this rule is to be found in the names of the islands which lie off the mouth of the Scheldt, and at the entrance of the Zuyder Zee. Does not the circumstance bear a striking testimony to the historical fact that it is only within comparatively recent times that the delta of the Scheldt has been broken up, and the Zuyder Zee formed by incursions of the ocean ?
Port Valais, the Portus Valesiae of the Romans, occupies the site of the ancient harbour at the upper end of the Lake of Geneva. The alluvium of the Rhone has advanced the land nearly two miles in less than two thousand years, being at the rate of between four and five feet per annum. Villeneuve, the new town, has taken the place of the old port.
The southern face of the Alps is bare and precipitous, and from meteorological causes, which are well understood, the district is peculiarly liable to sudden and violent falls of rain. The rivers of Lombardy are, in consequence, charged with an exceptional amount of alluvial matter. The whole plain of the Po is rapidly rising, so much so that at Modena the ruins of the Roman city are found forty feet beneath the surface of the ground. Hence at the embouchures of the Po and the Adige we might anticipate rapid changes in the coast line; and this we find to be the case. We find a range of ancient dunes and sea beaches stretching from Brandolo to Mesola. Ravenna, now four miles inland, stood on the coast two thousand years
^ Palgrave, England and Normandy , vol. ii. p. 200.
* Bum, Tour in Belgium, p. 14. “ Lyell, Principles, p. 259.
Bunbury, in Smith’s Diet, of Geogr. s. v. Ostia.
Words and Places
324
ago. One of the suburbs of Ravenna is called Classe, a cor- ruption of Classis^^ the ancient name of the port, which was capable of giving shelter to 250 ships of war. Classe is now separated from the sea by a dense forest of stone-pines two miles in breadth. The Adriatic takes its name from the town of Adria, which was its chief port, b.c. 200. Atri, the modem town upon the site, is now nearly twenty miles from the coast.
The present delta of the Po, containing 2800 square miles, was probably at no very distant date a shallow lagoon, resembling that which is crossed by the railway viaduct between Mestre and Venice. The delta commences at the town of Osteglia, now eighty-six miles from the sea. The name of Osteglia would indicate that here formerly was the embouchure of the Po. Este is nearly thirty miles inland, and the name seems also to be a cormption of the word ostia. The Po has, moreover, frequently changed its channel, and two of these deserted river-beds are known by the names of the Po Morto, the Po Vecchio.^
The name of Vesuvius is probably Oscan, and proves, as Benfey thinks, that this volcano must have been in eruption some 2400 years ago, before the Greeks arrived in Italy A similar conclusion may be deduced from the fact that the name of Etna means a furnace ” in the Phoenician language.^
On the Bay of Baise we find Monte Nuovo, the ‘‘ new mountain,” which, at the time of the eruption in the year 1538, was thrown up to a height of 440 feet in less than a week.®
Near Primiero, in the Italian Tyrol, is a lake, three miles long, called Lago Nuovo. This was formed a few years ago by a landslip which choked up the entrance to one of the narrow mountain valleys.®
The physical condition and the climate of the northern hemisphere have been largely affected by the destniction of the forests which once clothed the greater part of Europe.*^ The notices of ancient writers are seldom sufficiently definite or copious to enable us to discover the extent of the old woodland.
^ Niebuhr, Lectures on Ethnol. and Geogr, vol. ii. p. 240 ; Lyell, Principles, p. 256; Marsh, Man and Nature, p. 256.
* Lyell, Principles, p. 255; Beardmore, Hydrology, pp. 164-180.
* Benfey, in Hofer^s Zeitschrift, vol. ii. p. 118. Cf. the Sanskrit vasu, fire.
* See p. 83, supra. The name of Sodom means burning, thereby indicat- ing, as Dr. Stanley has suggested, the volcanic character of the region in which the catastrophe took place. Sinai and Pal. p. 289.
® Lyell, Principles of Geology, pp. 366-372.
* Gilbert and Churchill, Dolomite Mountains, p. 451.
’ See Marsh, Man and Nature, pp. 128-329.
Physical Changes 325
Occasionally we have tangible evidence such as is supplied by the bog oak of Ireland^ or the buried trees of Lincolnshire. But ancient names here stand us in good stead, and enable us, at certain definite periods, to discover with considerable precision the extent of primaeval forests now partly or entirely destroyed.
The local names of Iceland show in a very curious manner the way in which the rigour of the climate and the scarcity of fuel have caused the total destruction of the few forests of dwarf trees which existed at the time when the island was first dis- covered. At the present time, a solitary .tree, about thirty feet in height, is the sole representative of the former Icelandic forests; and the stunted bushes growing on the heaths are so eagerly sought for fuel that, as a recent traveller has observed, the loss of a toothpick is likely to prove an irreparable mis- fortune. The chief resource of the inhabitants is the drift- wood cast upon the coast by the Gulf Stream, or the costly substitute of Norwegian timber. But at the time of the first settlement of the island there must have been considerable tracts of woodland. In the Landnamahok we find no less than thirty-one local names containing the suffix holt, a wood, and ten containing the word skogr, a shaw. Most of these names still remain, though every vestige of a wood has disappeared. Thus there are several places still called Holt; and we also find Holtford, Skalholt, Reykholt (where Snorro Sturleson was murdered), Skogarfoss, Cape Skagi, Skogcottr, and Blaskogi- heidi or Blue-wood-Heath.
The name of Holstein, or Hol-satia, means the forest settle- ment, and it probably indicates, as Dr. Latham has observed,^ that the now barren Segeberger Heath was once a vast forest which supplied a portion of the Angles with the materials for the fleets with which they invaded the shores of England.
In Southern Europe names like Broglio, Brolo, and Breuil attest the former existence of forests in districts now entirely bare. The name of the island of Madeira bears witness to the vast forests which clothed the mountains of the island, and which were wantonly destroyed by fire soon after the discovery by the Portuguese. 2
The bare heaths to the south-west of London seem to have been at one time partially clothed with forest. This is indicated by the root holt (German Holz), which we find in the names of
^ English Language^ vol. i. p. 123.
* Marsh, Man and Nature, p. 129. So also local names attest the former existence of the forests which covered the now bare slopes of the High Alps of Dauphiny. Ib. p. 24.
326 Words and Places
Bagshot, Badshot, Ewshot^ Lodshot, Bramshot, Aldershot^ and Aldersholt.
The vast tract in Kent and Sussex which is now called the Weald/ is the remains of a Saxon forest called the AndreZesleah, which^ with a breadth of 30 miles, stretched for 120 miles along the northern frontier of the kingdom of the South Saxons. In the district of the Weald almost every local name, for miles and miles, terminates in hurst, ley, den, or field. The hursts'^ and charts ^ were the denser portions of the forest ; the leys were the open forest glades where the cattle love to lie ; ^ the dens ® were the deep wooded valleys, and the fields ® were little patches of
felled ” or cleared lands in the midst of the surrounding forest. From Petersfield and Midhurst, by Billinghurst, Cuckfield, Wadhurst, and Lamberhurst, as far as Hawkshurst and Tenter- den, these forest-names stretch in an uninterrupted string.'
^ Cf. the German wald^ wood. Well Street is the name of the Roman road which ran through the wooded district. Maury, Hist, des For its ^ p. 129.
^ E.g. Penshurst, Lyndhurst, and Chiselhurst.
® As in Seal Chart and Chart Sutton in Kent. The word chart is identicM with the hart (wood, or forest) which we find in such German names as the Hartz Mountains, the Hercynian Forest, Hunhart, Lyndhart, etc. H and ch are interchangeable, as in the case of the Chatti, who have given their name to Hesse. There seems to have been a German word harud or charud, from which hart and chart are derived. We find it in the names of the “ forest tribes,” the Harudes and the Cherusci. Cf. Latham, English Language^ vol. i. p. 57; Maury, Hist, des Forits^ p. 187.
^ The root of the word leah or lea is the verb “ to lie.” Kemble, Codex Dipl. vol. iii. p. xxxiii.
^ Den is probably a Celtic word adopted by the Saxons. The Ardennes is the “ great forest ” on the frontiers of Belgium and France. On the word den, see Leo, Rectitudines , p. 91; Kemple, Saxons, vol. i. p. 481; Maury, Hist, des For its, p. 167.
® E.g. Cuckfield, Lindfield, Uckfield. On field see note on p. 128, supra.
^ An analysis of the forest-names in the Weald gives the following results: —
|
hurst |
den |
ley |
holt, hot |
field |
Total |
|
|
Central Kent .... |
33 |
42 |
22 |
I |
19 |
I17 |
|
Northern Sussex |
40 |
16 |
21 |
4 |
28 |
109 |
|
Southern Surrey |
I |
0 |
8 |
II |
2 |
22 |
|
Eastern Hants .... |
26 |
I |
15 |
3 |
6 |
51 |
|
Total ( |
100 |
59 |
66 |
19 |
55 |
299 |
Physical Changes 327
The dens were the swine pastures ; and down to the seventeenth century the “ Court of Dens/’ as it was called, was held at Aldington to determine disputes arising out of the rights of forest pastured Another line of names ending in den testifies to the existence of the forest tract in Hertfordshire, Bedford- shire, and Huntingdonshire, which formed the western boundary of the East Saxon and East Anglian kingdoms. Henley in Arden, and Hampton in Arden, are vestiges of the great War- wickshire Forest of Arden, which stretched from the Forest of Dean to Sherwood Forest.
The Black Forest in Argyle is now almost entirely destitute of trees, and the same is the case with the Cotswold Hills in Gloucestershire. This name contains two synonymous ele- ments.^ The second syllable is the Anglo-Saxon weald, a wood, which we find in the now treeless Wolds of Yorkshire; and the first portion is the Celtic coed, a wood, which we find in Chat Moss, Catlow, Coitmore, Goodgrave, and Cadbeeston.^
The name of Derby, the village of wild beasts,” ^ shows us the state of things on the arrival of the Danes. The Midland Derby lay between the Forests of Arden and Sherwood. The hundred of Derby, which occupies the southern portion of Lancashire, and includes the populous towns of Liverpool and Wigan, was one vast forest, with the solitary village of Derby standing in the midst, till at length the villages of Ormskirk and Preston grew up around the church built by Ormr, and the priest’s house
Indeed, Lancashire, which is now such a busy hive of workers,
^The surnames Hayward and Howard are corruptions of Hogwarden, an officer elected annually to see that the swine in the common forest pastures or dens were duly provided with rings, and were prevented from straying. The Howard family first comes into notice in the Weald, where their name would lead us to expect to find them. So the family name of Woodward is vudu veard^ the wood warden, whose duties were analogous to those of the howard. There are many evidences of the importance attached to swine in Anglo-Saxon times. Flitch is etymologically the same word as fleisch or flesh, showing that the flesh of swine was pre-eminently
the flesh ” to which our ancestors were accustomed. Sir Walter Scott, in the well-known forest dialogue in Ivanhoe, has pointed out the fact that while veal, beef, mutton, and venison are Norman terms, bacon is Saxon. Cf. Mrs. Grote, Collected Papers, p. 165; Kemble, Anglo-Saxons, vol. i. pp. 481-486; Leo, Rectitudines , p. 129; Marsh, Lectures on English Language, p. 248.
* ^e pp. 163-165, supra.
® Whitaker, History of Whatley, p. 9; Verstegan, Restitution, p. 262.
* The German wor,d thier still means any wild animal ; but in England the extermination of the wolf, the wild ox, and the badger, has left the “ deer ” as the solitary representative of the German thier.
® See Whitaker, History of Manchester, vol. ii. p. 403.
Words and Places
328
was one of the most desolate and thinly peopled parts of Eng- land before coal had been discovered underlying her barren moorlands and thick forests. An analysis of the local names will enable us to make a rough comparison of the area anciently under cultivation with that which was unreclaimed. Tlirough- out Lancashire we find very few names ending in borough., by, or tliorpe, and hence we conclude that the number of villages and towns was small. There is a fair sprinkling of names in ham, worth, and cote, suffixes which would denote detached home- steads; while the very large number of names which are com- pounded with the words shaw, holt, ley, hill, and 77tere, prove that the greater portion of the county consisted only of wood- land or wild moor.^
In order to arrive at somewhat definite results, an analysis has been made of the local names in the counties of Surrey and Suffolk. Of the total number of names in Surrey 36 per cent, have terminations like wood, holt, hurst, ley, deit, or moor, and 12 per cent, end in don, combe, ridge, hill, etc., while 40 per cent, exhibit such suffixes as ham, worth, cote, ton, sted, or borough, whence we gather that the proportion of uninhabited to in- habited places was 48 to 40. In Suffolk, on the other hand, the population seems to have been much more dense, for 65 per cent, of the names denote habitations, 18 per cent, denote wood and moorland, and 7 per cent, denote hills.^ It would thus appear that the ratio of the density of the population in Suffolk to that in Surrey was approximately as 13 to 8, whereas at the present time the population of Suffolk is 215 to the square mile, and that of Surrey 842, or in the ratio of 13 to 48.
The names which we have been considering indicate the former existence of ancient forests that have been cleared. In Hampshire we are presented with the converse phenomenon; we meet with names which establish a fact which has been doubted by some historical inquirers, that extensive populated districts were afforested to form what now constitutes the New
^ Davies, in Philolog. Trans, for 1855, p. 262.
^ We may tabulate these results as follows: —
|
Names in |
ham |
ton |
ing |
thorpe |
borough or bury |
field |
ley |
wood |
hurst |
|
Suffolk |
84 |
88 |
17 |
5 |
12 |
31 |
27 |
I |
0 |
|
Surrey |
36 |
30 |
10 |
I |
10 |
9 |
40 |
14 |
15 |
Physical Changes 329
Forest. The very name of the New Forest has its historical value — and within its present reduced area, the sites of some ! of the villages that were destroyed are attested by names like Trougham, Fritham, Wooton, Hinton, Bochampton, Tachbury, IWinsted, Church Walk, and Church Moor, while the village- names of Greteham, Adelingham, Wolnetune, and Bermintone survive only in the Domesday record.^
The hundred is supposed to have been originally the settle- ment of one hundred free families of Saxon colonists, just as the canton was a similar Celtic division.^ In rural districts the population must have increased at least tenfold — often in a much larger proportion — since the period of the formation of the present hundreds. Many single agricultural parishes contain a hundred families removed above the labouring class, and we may probably conclude that the population is equal to that one of the Saxon hundreds.
The manner in which the island was gradually peopled, and the distribution and relative density of the Saxon population^ are curiously indicated by the varying sizes of the hundreds. In Kent, Sussex, and Dorset, which were among the earliest ! settlements, the small dimensions of the hundreds prove that The Saxon population was very dense, whereas, when we [approach the borders of Wales and Cumberland, where the Saxon tenure was one rather of conquest than of colonisation, and where a few free families probably held in check a con- siderable subject population, we find that the hundreds include a much larger area.
Thus the average number of square miles in each hundred is,
; In Sussex 23
1 Kent 24
Dorset 30
Wiltshire 44
Northamptonshire . . 52
Surrey 58
|
Jrierts .... |
• 79 |
|
Gloucestershire . |
• 97 |
|
Nottinghamshire . |
. 105 |
|
Derbyshire |
. 162 |
|
Warwickshire . |
. 179 |
|
Lancashire |
. 302 |
We arrive at somewhat similar conclusions from the pro- portions of the slaves to the rest of the population, as returned in Domesday. In the east of England we find no slaves returned, the Celtic population having become entirely assimilated. In
1 Ellis, Introduction to Domesday ^ p. xxxiv. A colony of the dispossessed villagers was established at Carlisle by Rufus. Of this I can find no trace in local names. See Palgrave, Eng. Common, vol. i. p. 449.
^ From the Welsh cant^ a hundred. See Diefenbach, Celtica^ i. pp. 113- 115; Hallam, Middle Ages, vol. ii. p. 391.
Words and Places
330
Kent and Sussex the slaves constitute 10 per cent, of the popula- tion: in Cornwall and Devon^ 20 per cent.; and in Gloucester- shire, 33 per cent.
The knowledge which we possess of several thousand names which have been preserved in Anglo-Saxon charters, enables us to ascertain, in many cases, the original forms of names which have now become more or less corrupted. From the study of these names Professor Leo, of Halle,^ has arrived at the con- clusion that agriculture was in a more advanced state among the Anglo-Saxons than on the Continent. A three-course system of husbandry was adopted ; wheat and flax are the crops which seem to have been the most cultivated. We meet with indications of the existence of extensive estates, on which stood large houses, occasionally of stone, but more frequently of wood, for the residence of the proprietor, surrounded by the tun or inclosure for cattle, and the hariun or inclosure for the gathered crops. Round the homestead were inclosed fields, with bams, mills, and weirs. There were detached outlying sheepfolds and sheepcotes, with residences for the serfs, and special pasturages were allotted to swine and goats. The estates were separated from one another by a mark, or broad boundary of woodland. There were open forest-pastures fed by swine, which must have presented an appearance resembling that of the open parts of the New Forest at the present day. In these woodlands the prevalent vegetation consisted of the thorn, hazel, oak, ash, elm, lime, and fern. The maple, beech, birch, aspen, and willow grew less abundantly. There were plantations of osiers, and the names of the rush and sedge occur so frequently as to indicate a very defective state of drainage.
One fact, however, which we gather from these ancient names indicates a marked peculiarity in the aspect of Anglo-Saxon England. In no single instance throughout the charters do we meet with a name implying the existence of any kind of pine 01 fir, a circumstance which curiously corroborates the assertion of Caesar, that there was no fir found in Britain.^ The names of fmit-trees are also very unfrequent, with the exception of that of the apple-tree, and even this appears very rarely in conjunc- tion with Anglo-Saxon roots, being found chiefly in Celtic^
^ Leo, Anglo-Saxon Names , p. 72. See al^ Codex Dipiomaiicus Mvi Saxonicif passim; St. John, Four Conquests of England, vol. ii. p. 191; Ellis, Introduction to Domesday Book, pp. xxx-xliv.
^ See, however, Whitaker, History of Manchester, vol. i. p. 309.
® The root apple or apul runs through the whole of the Celtic, Scandi- navian, Teutonic, and Sclavonic languages. See Diefenbach, Vergleich. Worterb. vol. i. p. 88.
Physical Changes 331
names, such as Appledore,^ Appledurcombe, and Avalon ; or in Norse names, such as Appleby, Applegarth, and Applethwaite.
At the period of the Conquest, vineyards do not seem to have been uncommon in the south of England. In Domesday Book vineyards are mentioned in the counties of Hertford, Middlesex, Norfolk, Suffolk, Kent, Hampshire, Dorset, and Wilts. At the present day a part of the town of Abingdon is called the Vine- yard, and there is also a field so called near Beaulieu Abbey in Hampshire, and another near Tewkesbury. The same name is borne by lands which were formerly attached to monastic foundations in the counties of Worcester, Hereford, Somerset, I Cambridge, and Essex. The very early existence of vine culture in England is indicated by the name of Winnal in Hampshire, which is derived from the Celtic gwinllan, a vineyard.^
Local names occasionally preserve evidence of the former existence of animals now extinct. The names of the wolf and the bear were so commonly used as personal appellations by the Danes and Saxons, that we are unable to pronounce with certainty as to the significance of names like Wolferlow in Herefordshire, or Bam wood in Gloucestershire. Wolvesey, a I small island at Winchester, was, however, the place where the I Welsh tribute of wolves’ heads was annually paid.® The i badger or broc gave its name to Bagshot, Broxbourne, and I Brogden; the wild boar (eofer) was found at Evershaw, Ever- I shot, Everton, and Eversley;^ and the crane at Cranfield and Cranboum.
The huge aurochs, which once roamed over the forests of Germany, is mentioned in the Niebelungen Lied by the name of the Wisent ; and in Hesse we find a place called Wiesenfeld, the “ aurochs’ field,” and another called Wiesenstiege, the
aurochs’ stair.” ® We find traces of the elk at Elbach and Ellwangen ; and of the Schelch, a gigantic elk, now everywhere extinct, at Schollnach.®
The fox is unknown in the Isle of Man, and not even a tradition survives of its former presence. A place called
^ Appledore in Romney Marsh was a favourite station of the Vikings. See Saxon Chronicle. Hasting the Dane built a castle there.
•Redding, Wines, pp. 33, 34; Gough’s Camden, vol. i. p. 189; Lap- penberg, Anglo-Saxon Kings, vol. ii. p. 360; Edinburgh Review, vol. cxi. p. 392.
® Yonge, Christian Names, vol. ii. p. 269.
« Leo, Anglo-Saxon Names, p. 12; Morris, Local Names, p. 10; Monk- house, Etymologies, p. 40.
® Piderit, Ortsnamen, p. 296; Forstemann, Ortsnamen, p. 145.
« Forstemann, Ortsnamen, p. 145 ; Marsh, Man and Nature, p. 85.
M 517
Words and Places
332
Cronkshynnagh, which means ‘‘Fox hough/’ is, however^ sufficient to prove that this animal was once a denizen of the island.^
The vestiges of the beaver are very numerous. Beverley in Yorkshire is the “ beaver’s haunt/’ and we find a Beverstone in Gloucestershire, and a Bevercoates in Nottinghamshire. The valley which stretches northwards from the Glyders, scored with glacial strise and dotted over with moraines, bears the name of Nant Frangon, or “ the beaver’s dale; ” and across this valley stretches Sarn yr Afrange, or “ the beaver’s dam.” ^ The magnificent pool, well known both to the artist and to the angler, which lies just below the junction of the Lledr and the Conway, is called Llyn yr Afrange, “ the beaver’s pool.” ^ In Germany we have the names of Bibersburg,^ Biverbike (the beaver’s beck),^ and the Bebra (anciently Piparaha, or beaver’s river).^ From the Sclavonic bohr, a beaver, we have the River Bober in Silesia, as well as Bobern, Boberow, Bobersburg, Boberwitz, and Bobrau.^ Bievre on the Aisne has been identified with the Bibrax of Csesar, and Bibracte, now Autun, was the chief city of the ^Edui. The tribe of the Bibroci no doubt called themselves “ the Beavers,” in the same way that North American tribes take their names from the snakes, the foxes, or the crows.®
In the Saxon charters we find many allusions to quarries, but there is a remarkable absence of names denoting iron-works or mines, such names, for instance, as the Goldberg, Eisenberg, Kupferhiitte, and Erzgeberge, which we find in Germany. In the Forest of Dean, however, we find on the map Cinderford and Cinderhill, names derived from vast heaps of scoriae, from which the iron had been so imperfectly extracted by the Roman miners that these mounds form a valuable consideration in the purchase of the ground on which they lie.® The charters contain
^ Train, Isle of Man, vol. i. p. 20.
^ Pennant, Wales, vol. ii. p. 299. ^ Ihid. vol. ii. p. 134.
* Pictet, Orig. Indo-Europ. vol. i. p. 444.
® Vilmar, Ortsnamen, p. 258.
® Piderit, Ortsnamen, p. 297; Vilmar, Ortsnamen, p. 256.
’ Buttmann, Ortsnamen, p. 124; Jacobi, Ortsnamen um Potsdam, P- 34.
® Zeuss, Grammatica Celtica, vol. i. p. 44; vol. ii. p. 761; Gliick, Kelt. Namen, p. 43; Forstemann, Ortsnamen, p. 145. The word beaver is common to most of the Aryan languages. Latin fiber [=beber], Cornish hefer, Gaelic beabhor, Gaulish biber, German befer. The Welsh names are afrange, and Host lydan, “ the broad-tailed.” On the former existence of the beaver in Scotland, see Wilson, Pre-historic Annals, p. 193.
® Nicholls, Forest of Dean, p. 216.
Physical Changes 333
numerous indications of the localities where salt was procured or manufactured.^ Domesday Book enumerates no less than 385 salt-works in the single county of Sussex. The wics in the Essex marshes were probably once salt-works, and we have already traced the singular way in which the wych or bay-houses on the coast came to give a name to the inland salt-works of Droitwich and Nantwich.^ But the evidence of names enables us to prove that many existing salt-works were worked before the advent of the Teutonic race. This we can do by means of the Celtic word hal, salt; which we find in. the name of Pwllhelli, the salt pools/’ in Carnarvonshire. At Haling, on the Hamp- shire coast, salt-works still exist, which apparently date from Celtic times ; and we find a place called Halton in Cheshire, and Halsal and Hallaton in Lancashire. In the salt-producing districts of Germany several towns whose names contain the Celtic root hal stand on rivers which contain the Teutonic synonym sal? Thus Halle, in Prussian Saxony, stands on the River Saala (salt river); Reichen-Hall, in Bavaria, is also on a River Sale; ^ Hallein, in Salzburg, stands on the Salza. We find towns called Hall near the salt-mines of the Tyrol, of Upper Austria, and of Swabia; there is a Halle in Ravensberg, a Hallstadt in the Salzkammergut, and Halen and Hal in Brabant.®
The institution of lighthouses dates from very early times, as names bear witness. The names of the Pharos, at Dover and Alexandria, and the Gibel el Faro, near Malaga, take us back beyond the Christian era. In Sicily, the cape by the side of Charybdis, and opposite Scylla, was called Cape Pelorus (Cape Terrible). It has now become Capo di Faro — the erection of the lighthouse having caused the cape to lose at once its terrors and its name of terror.® Cape Colonna, in Greece, takes its name from the conspicuous white columns of the ruined
^ Ellis, Introduction to Domesday ^ p. xl.; Lappenberg, Anglo-Saxon Kings, vol. i. p. 363.
^ See p. 130, supra.
3 An ingenious attempt to account for this distinction will be found in Leo, Vorlesungen, vol. i. p. 196.
* There were six German rivers anciently called Sala. Forstemann, Alt- deut. Namenbuch, vol. ii. p. 1209. We find the River Halys (salt water) in Galatia, and the River Halycus in Sicily.
^ On names containing the root hal, see Leo, Rectitudines , p. 203 ; and an article by the same writer in Haupt’s Zeitschrift, vol. v. p. 511 ; Grimm, Deut. Mythol. p. 1000; Garnett, Essays, p. 150; Bender, Deutschen Orts- namen, p. 113; Mahn, Namen Berlin, p. 6.
«Dufi, in Oxford Essays for 1857, p. 93; Duke of Buckingham, Diary, vol. i. p. 226.
Words and Places
334
Doric temple which served as a landmark to the Genoese and Venetian seamen;^ and Cape Corunna, in Spam, is so called from the columna or tower which served the purpose of a Pharos. The name of Flamborough Head speaks of the rude fires of coal or wood that used to “ flame ” by night on that dangerous headland.^ At the extremity of the peninsula of Furness ^ (Fireness) is a small island, on which stands a ruined building called the Pile of Foudry — that is, the ‘‘ peel or tower of the ‘‘ fire isle.” ^ Furness and Foudry are Norse names, and are an indication of the antiquity of the lighthouse which guided the Northmen in their voyages from the Isle of Man to Lancaster.^ The numerous Beacon Hills throughout the island call to mind the rude though efficient means by w’hich, before the days of the electric telegraph, the tidings of great events could be communicated from one end of the island to the other. There are those now alive who can remember looking out, the last thing every night, towards the Beacon Hill to know if the dreaded landing of Bonaparte had taken place.
Though the commerce of the Anglo-Saxons was not extensive, yet our local names indicate considerable changes in the relative commercial importance of various towns. The natural ad- vantages of the site of London have enabled it to maintain, at all times, its ancient pre-eminence — for its Celtic name implies that, even in pre-historic times, it was, as it is still, the “ city of ships.”
From the Anglo-Saxon ceapian, to buy, cypan, to sell, and ceap^ price, or sale, we derive many names which indicate early
^ Bremer, Greece, vol. i. p. 313.
2 This name may, however, mean the “ camp of refuge.” Anglo-Saxcoi ■fleam, a fugitive. The extremity of the headland has been converted into a stronghold by an ancient dyke still called Danes’ Dyke.
^ Ferguson, Northmen, p. 109.
It is possible, however, the Furness may be only the “ fore ness,” and Foudry the isle of fowls.”
® There is also a Furness on the Belgian coast.
® To this root we may trace many idiomatic English words. A chapman is an itinerant seller; chap was originally an abbreviated form of chapman. Cheap, an abbreviation of good cheap, answers to the French hon marche : while good cheap still survives in the phrase dog cheap, where the letters d and g have been interchanged according to a well-known phonetic law. The original sense of the root is that of bargaining — the ancient method of making a purchase — which is preserved in the word to chaffer. To chop horses is to sell them. A horse couper is one who deals in horses. To chop and change is to sell and barter. To swop and to swab are probably phonetic variations of to chop. Thus we say the wind chops, i.e. changes. The ultimate root is the Sanskrit kupa, the beam of a balance. Compare the old Sclavonic kupiti, to buy, the Gothic kaupon, the Latin caupo, and the Greek KdinjXo^. Wedgwood, Eng. Etym. vol. i. p. 327; Pictet, Orig. Indo-Europ. part ii. pp. 416, 417.
Physical Changes 335
seats of commercial activity. A chipping was the old English term for a market-place; thus Wicliffe translates Luke vii. 32, '' They ben like children sitting in chepinge and spekinge togidre.” Hence we see that Chipping Norton^ Chipping Camden, Chipping Sodbury, Chipping Ongar, Chipping Barnet, Cheping Hill on the south side of the church at Witham, Chep- stow, and Chippingham, are ancient market-towns — once of much greater relative commercial importance than they are at present. Cheapside and Eastcheap were the old market-places of London. In Norse names the form cope takes the place of the Anglo-Saxon ceap, Copenhagen ^ is equivalent to Chipping Haven. In like manner we infer from the name of the Cope- land Islands, near Belfast, that here were the storehouses of the goods brought by Norwegian traders. Copmansthorpe, near York, would be equivalent to the German Kaufmansdorf, the merchants’ village ; and the form of the word shows us that here the Danish traders resided, just as those of Saxon blood dwelt together at Chapmanslade. The word staple also enables us to detect some of the local centres of Anglo-Saxon trade. This word has undergone some changes in meaning. It now denotes the established merchandise of a place; — thus we should say lace is the staple of Nottingham. But the term was formerly applied to the place rather than to the merchandise, and our forefathers would have said Nottingham is the staple of lace.^ In local names — as Dunstable, Barnstaple, and Etaples in France — this word staple denotes a place where merchants were wont to store their goods. ^
When the English word market takes the place of the Anglo- Saxon chipping, or staple, as in the case of Stowmarket, Market Bosworth, or Wickham Market, we may fairly conclude that the commercial importance of the town in question dates from a more recent period.
^ Anciently Kiobmaens havn. The Norse word hoping is pronounced chaping. Hence we derive the names of Jonkoping, Lidcoping, Nykoping, Norrkoping. See Thompson, Travels in Sweden^ p. 42, quoted in Crichton, Scandinavia, vol. i. p. 226. Kiel and Kielerfiord take their names from the Danish keol, a ship. Morris, Local Names, p. 29. The name of the Hanse towns seems to be from hansel, a contract, or kanse, a company or association. Wedgwood, in Philolog. Trans, for 1860-61, p. 37.
* See Trench, Glossary, p. 205.
* It may be noted that the name of Ampurias in Spain retains, nearly unchanged, the name of the Hellenic settlement of Emporice.
CHAPTER XVI
CHANGES AND ERRORS
Vitality of Local Names — Recurrence to ancient Names — Changes in Names often simply phonetic — Lincoln — Sarum — Whitehall — Phonetic corruptions among savage tribes — Interchange of sufi&xes of analogous sound — ^Tendency to contraction — Laws of Phonetic change — Examples — Influence of popular etymological speculation on the form of Names — ^Tendency to make Names significant — Examples — ^Transformations of French Names — Invention of new saints from Local Names — Transformed Names often give rise to legends — Bozra — ^Thongcastle — ^The Dun Cow — Antwerp — ^The Mouse Tower — ^The Amazons of the Baltic — Pilatus — ^The Piets — ^The Tatars — Poland — Mussulman — Negro-pont — Corruptions of Street-Names — America — ^The Gypsies.
Professor Max Muller^ in his deservedly popular lectures, has well illustrated the process of phonetic decay by which the words of a nation’s speech are clipped and worn down by constant currency, until, like ancient coins, the legend which they bore at first has become effaced. Many words, whose paternity is nevertheless indisputable, do not retain a single letter, sometimes not even a single vocable, of the ancestral form, and exhibit still less resemblance to collateral descendants from the parent stock. Who would imagine, for instance, that the French word larme i^ the same as the English tear ; that the French jour is a lineal descendant of the Latin dies^ or that dies and the two syllables of Tuesday are all descended from the same original Aryan root ?
In the case of local names the raw materials of language do not lend themselves with the same facility as other words to the processes of decomposition and reconstruction, and many names have for thousands of years remained unchanged, and even linger round the now deserted sites of the places to which they refer. The names of five of the oldest cities of the world — Damascus, Hebron, Gaza, Sidon, and Hamath — are still pronounced by the inhabitants in exactly the same manner as was the case thirty, or perhaps forty, centuries ago, defying
^ Dies — diurnum tempus — giorno—jour, Aujourd'hui contains the root dies twice, the hui being a corruption of hodie = hoc die. Max Muller, Lectures j p. 48; Lewis, Romance Languages ^ pp. 213, 220.
336
Changes and Errors 337
oftentimes the persistent attempts of rulers to substitute some other name. During the three hundred years of the Greek rule, an attempt was made by the conquerors to change the name of Hamath to Epiphania, but the ancient appellation lingered on the lips of the surrounding tribes, and has now resumed its sway, while the Greek name has been utterly forgotten. The name of Accho, which we find in the Old Testament, was superseded for some time by the Greek name of Ptolemais. This is now forgotten, and the place goes by the name of Akka.^ The Greeks attempted to impose their name of Nicopolis on the town of Emmaus, but in vain; for the modem name, ’Amwas, still asserts the vitality of the ancient designation.^ We read, in the Book of Chronicles, that Solomon built Tadmor in the wilderness. The Romans attempted to impose on it the name of Adrianopolis, but this appellation has utterly perished, and the Bedouin still give the ancient name of Tadmor ^ to the desolate forest of erect and prostrate columns which marks the site of the city of the palms. Tenedos and Argos still bear the names which they bore in the time of Homer. Most of the islands of the Grecian archipelago, and many of the neighbouring cities, retain their ancient names with little variation,^ and several of the Etruscan cities are called by the same names which they bore at the first dawn of Italian civilisation.^
But we need not go to the East for instances of the persistency with which names adhere to the soil. The name of London is now, in all probability, pronounced exactly as it was at the time when Caesar landed on the coast of Kent. The Romans attempted to change the name, but in vain. It mattered little what the city on the Thames was called in the edicts of prefects and proconsuls. The old Celtic name continued in common usage, and has been transmitted in turn to Saxons, Normans, and Englishmen. It is curious to listen to Ammianus Mar- cellinus speaking of the name of London as a thing of the
^Stanley, Sinai and Palestine, p. 381; Robinson, Later Researches, p. 92.
* Robinson, Later Researches, p. 146.
* Palmyra is an Italian translation of the enchorial name of Tadmor, and is known only in the West. See Beaufort, Egyptian Sepulchres and Syrian Shrines, vol. i. pp. 34, 302.
* Delos is now Dili, Paros is Paro, Scyros is Skyro, Naxos is Naxia, Patmos is Patimo, Samos is Samo, Thasos is Thaso, Sardis is Sart, Sparta is Sparti, Arbela is Arbil, Tyre or Tzur is Sur, Nazareth is Nazirah, Joppa is Yafa, Gaza is Ghuzzeh.
® The names of Saturnia and Populonia are unaltered. Cortona is now Cortono, Volaterrse is Volaterra, Sena is Sienna, Pisae is Pisa, and Perusia is Perugia.
Words and Places
338
past — an old name which had gone quite out of use, and given place to the grand Roman name ‘‘ Augusta/’ ^
In like manner the ancient Indian name of Haiti has replaced the appellation of St. Domingo, which the Spanish conquerors attempted to impose up>on the island. But though so many names remain substantially unchanged in spite of efforts to supplant them, yet, as the successive waves of population have flowed on, many influences have been set at work which have sometimes produced material modifications, and it often requires the utmost care, and no inconsiderable research, to detect the original form and signification of very familiar names, and to extract the information which they are able to afford.
These modifying influences are of two kinds. The' first is simply phonetic. A conquering nation finds it difficult to pro- nounce certain vocables which enter into the names used by the conquered people, and changes consequently arise which bring the ancient names into harmony with the phonetic laws of the language spoken by the conquerors. Many illustrations of this process may be found in Domesday. The ‘‘ inquisitors ” seem to have been slow to catch the pronunciation of the Saxon names, and were, moreover, ignorant of their etymologies, and we meet consequently with many ludicrous transformations. The name of Lincoln, for example, which is a hybrid of Celtic and Latin, appears in the Ravenna Geographer in the form Lindum Colonia, and in Beda as Lindocolina. The enchorial name must have been very nearly what it is now. This, how- ever, the Norman conquerors were unable to pronounce, and changed the name into Nincol or Nicole.^ The name of Shrews- bury is an English corruption of the Anglo-Saxon Scrobhes- by rig or Shrubborough. The Normans, however, corrupted ^robbesbury into Sloppesburie, whence the modem name of Salop is derived. So also the Roman Sorbiodunum was con- tracted into the English Sarum, and then, as in the case of Salop^ the Normans changed the r into an Z, and have thus given us the form Salisbury.
In the Arabic chronicles of Spain we meet with many curious transformations of familiar names, such, for instance, as that of the Visigoths into the Bishtolkat.®
^ Ab Augusta profectus, quam veteres adpellavere Lundinium. A mm. Marc. lib. xxviii. cap. 3, § i. Lundinium, vetus oppidum, quod Augustam posteritas adpellavit. Ibid. lib. xxvii. cap. 8, § 7.
* Dugdale, Monast. Anglic, vol. ii. p. 645, apud Thierry, Norman Con- quest^ p. 84.
® Gayangos, Dynasties, vol. i. p. 324. So the Indian names Misachibee
Changes and Errors 339
Mr. Motley, in his United Netherlands, has given an amusing instance from the archives of Simancas. A dispatch of the ambassador Mendoja stated that Queen Elizabeth was residing at the palace of St. James. Philip II., according to his custom, has scrawled on the margin of this dispatch, “ There is a park between it, and the palace which is called Huytal, but why it is called Huytal I am sure I don’t know.” Whitehall seems to have presented an insurmountable etymological difficulty to the ‘‘ spider ” of the Escurial.
Among unlettered nations phonetic changes of this kind are especially likely to arise. The word Yankee is probably an Indian corruption of either Anglois or English} The Chinese call an Englishman Yingkwoh^ the Bengalee calls him Inrej, and corrupts the words champagne and coachman into the forms simkin and gurrawaun? At Fort Vancouver, the medium of intercourse a few years ago was a curious Lingua Franca, com- posed of Canadian-French, English, Iroquois, Cree, Hawaian, and Chinese. The word for rum was lum, for money tula, a corruption of dollar, and an Englishman went by the name of a Kintshosh, a corruption of King George.^ The Kaffirs of Natal call Harry Hali, and Mary Mali. The Egbas have turned Thompson into Tamahana, and Philip into Piripi.^ The Maoris make sad havoc of biblical names ; they have transformed Lot to Rota, and Philemon to Pirimona} Sailors are especially given to such innovations. Jos-house, for instance, the name applied to the Buddhist temples in China, has been formed by English sailors out of the Portuguese word dios, god.^
Anglo-Saxon suffixes of nearly similar sound sometimes come to be interchanged. This has very frequently taken place
and Tlaltelolco have been corrupted into Mississippi and Guadalupe. Russell, Diary North and South, vol. i. p. 381; Yonge, Christian Names, vol. i. p. 81.
^ Drake, Book of the Indians, book i. p. 23.
* Fleming, Travels on Horseback, p. 116.
^ Hotten, Slang Dictionary, pp. 148, 231.
* Wilson, Pre-historic Man, vol. ii. p. 431. An American is called Boston, and the ordinary salutation is Clakhohahyah, which is explained by the fact that the Indians, frequently hearing a trader named Clark, long resident in the fort, addressed by his companions in the village, “ Clark, how are you? imagined that this sentence was the correct English form of salutation.
* Burton, Mission to Gelele, vol. i. p. 32.
* Yonge, Christian Names, vol. i. p. 10.
’ The sailors* transformations of H.M.S. Bellerophon into the Billy Ruffian, of the Andromache into the Andrew Mackay, of the Molus into the Alehouse, of the Courageux into the Currant Juice, and of the steamer Hirondelle into the Iron Devil, belong to another class of changes, which we shall presently consider. See pp. 344, 345, infra.
Words and Places
340
in the case of stone and ton. Thus Brigges-stan has been transmuted into Brixton^ and Brihtelmes-stan into Brighthelm- stone^ Brighthampton^ and Brighton. The change from don to ton is also common. Seccan-dun is now Seckmgton/ and Beamdun is Bampton.^ The suffix hithe, a haven, is changed into ey, an island, in the case of Stepney, formerly Stebenhithe, and into head, in the case of Maidenhead, formerly Maydenhithe. In Carisbrook, which was anciently Wihtgara-byrig, we have a change from burgh to brooh? The suffix in the name Durham is properly not the Saxon ham, but the Norse holm, and Dunelm — the signature of the bishop — ^reminds us also that the Celtic prefix is Dun, a hill fort, and not Dur, water.'*
Many of these changes seem to be simply phonetic, among which we may reckon Gravesham into Gravesend, Edgeworth into Edgeware, Ebbsham into Epsom, Swanwick into Swanage, and Badecanwylla or Bathwell into Bakewell. The great tendency is to contraction; as Horne Tooke puts it, “ letters, like soldiers, being very apt to desert and drop off in a long march.” ^ Thus we find Botolph’s ton contracted into Bo’ston, Agmondesham into Amersham, and Eurewic into York. In London St. Olaf’s Street has been changed into Tooley Street, and in Dublin into Tulloch Street.® St. Mary’s Hall, Oxford, has been transformed into Skimmery Hall, and this has been abbreviated into the disrespectful appellation Skim. St. Bridget is turned into St. Bride, St. Benedict into St. Bennet, St. Etheldreda into St. Awdrey, St. Egidius into St. Giles.^ This tendency to contraction is often to be detected in the pronunciation of names of which the more lengthened form is retained in writing. Thus Cirencester is pronounced Cisester; Gloucester, Gloster; Worcester, Worster; Barfreestone, Barston ; and Trotterscliffe, Trosley.® In America, on the other hand, owing to the universal prevalence of reading, the tendency is to pronounce words exactly as they are spelt, and Worcester is pronounced Wor-ces-ter, and Illinois is called Illinoys.^
^ Sax. Chron. a.d. 755. ^ Ib. a.d. 614. ® See p. 289, supra.
^ Durham is written Dunholm in the Saxon Chronicle, a.d. 1072.
® Tooke, Diversions of Purley, part i. ch. vi. p. 94.
® Now pulled down. It was standing in the sixteenth century.
^ Territorial surnames show still more startling changes. St. Denys has been corrupted into Sydney, St. Maur into Seymour, St. Paul into Semple, Sevenoaks into Snooks, and St. John and St. Leger are pronounced Sinjun and Sillinger.
® In Switzerland inghofen is generally contracted into ikon, as Benning- hofen into Bennikon. Meyer, Ortsnamen, pp. 127-136.
* In Samuel Rogers’ youth every one said Lunnon ; we have now returned ,to Lundun. . ,
Changes and Errors 341
In endeavouring to recover the original forms of names, it becomes important to discover the phonetic tendencies which prevailed among different nations. This is not the place to exhibit or discuss the laws of phonetic change which have been detected ; ^ all that can here be attempted is to illustrate them by a few characteristic instances.
The tendency among the German nations is to develop the sibilants and gutturals ; among the Romance nations to suppress these and develop the mutes and liquids. Thus in the name of the River Atesis or Atygis, how harsh is the German name —
^ “ Grimm’s law,” as it is called, enables us to identify cognate words in I the Teutonic and Romance languages. It is '
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In Greek and gene- \ rally in Sanskrit 1 and Latin, the [ letters . . . / |
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Correspond in \ Gothic to . . j |
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g |
|
And in Old High! German to . . j |
m,f) |
pm |
P |
d |
th [z] |
t |
g w |
kh |
k |
The changes from the Latin to the modem Romance languages are more simple. The chief correspondences are —
|
Latin .... |
P |
b |
f |
V |
c |
q |
g |
i |
|
Romance Lan- \ guages . . j |
6, V |
Vj |
h |
b |
g, ch, k, z, s |
c, P |
y, L 1 |
gy |
|
Latin . |
t |
d |
s |
m |
n 1 |
1 |
r |
|
|
Romance guages < |
Lan- \ |
dj z |
2, l,s,c |
k, Z, X |
n |
/, r |
r, n, Ih |
1, d |
See Bopp, Vergleich. Gramm. ; Grimm, Geschichte der Deut. Sprachg, vol. i. pp. 294-434; Schleicher, Die Sprachen Europas ; Bunsen, Brit. Assoc. Reports for 1847, p. 262; Edinb. Rev. vol. xciv. pp. 318, 319; Prichard, Eastern Origin^ pp. 179-200; Mone, Celt. Forschungen ; Donaldson, Varronianus ; New Cratylus, pp. 144-190; Max Muller, Lectures^ second series, pp. 198-222; Pott, Etymol. Forschungen ; Diez, Rom. Gram. vol. i. pp. 175-253; Lewis, Romance Languages ; Milman, Hist. Latin Christianity, vol. vi. p. 343.
Words and Places
342
the Etsch; how soft and harmonious the Italian development of the same word — the Adige. Again, we may compare the German Liittich with the French Liege, or we may contrast the German change of Confluentes into Coblentz with the soft effect produced even in cases when the Italians have introduced sibilants, as in the change of Florentia into Firenze, or Placentia into Piacenza.
But the best illustration of these phonetic tendencies will be to enumerate a few cases where the same root has been variously modified by different nations. Let us take the Latin word forum. The Forum Julii, in Southern France, has become Frejus; and, in Northern Italy, the same name has been changed to Friuli. In the Emilia we find Forli (Forum Livii), Fossom- brone (Forum Sempronii), Ferrara (Forum Allieni), and Fomovo (Forum Novum). In Central Italy we have Forcassi (Forum Cassii), Fiora (Forum Aurelii), Forfiamma (Forum Flaminii), and Forlimpopoli (Forum Popilii).
With these compare the German name Klagenfurt (Claudii forum), the Dutch Voorbourg (Forum Hadriani), the French Feurs (Forum Segusianorum), and the Sardinian Fordongianus (Forum Trajani).
Or let us take the changes effected in the Greek word ttgAz-s, a city. Neapoiis, in Italy, has become Naples, in the Morea it has become Nauplia. Neapoiis, near Carthage, is now Nabel, and Neapoiis, in Syria, is Nabulus or Nablus.^ Tripoli is little changed; Amphipolis is now Emboli, Callipolis is Gallipoli, Antipolis is Antibes, Gratianopolis is Grenoble. Stamboul, or Istamboul, the modern name of Byzantium, is not, as might be imagined, a corruption of Constantinopolis, but of €9 rotv ttoXlv^ a phrase analogous to that which we use when we speak of a journey to London, as going “ to town.’’ In like manner Stanko, the modem name of the Island of Cos, is a cormption of
rav Kw.®
^ Robinson, Biblical Researches, vol. iii. pp. 96, 119.
^ Stanley, Sinai and Palestine, p. 246; Leo, Vorlesungen, vol. i. p. 196.
^ The same process of the incorporation of preposition and articles may be seen in Zermat, Andermat. Many German names beginning with M are due to am or im prefixed to Celtic names. Thus Oersberg has become changed to Marsberg, Eppenthal to Meppenthal, Achenthal to Machen- thal. So with Mosbach, Meiches, and many others. Mone, Celt. Forsck. pp. 157, 180. Thaxted is probably The Axstead, Thistleworth is The Istle-worth, Atford and Otford are At the ford, and Abridge is At the bridge. Also in Spain the Arabic article Al is often incorporated into the name. See p. 92, supra. Luxor, one of the four villages which stand on the site of ancient Thebes, is a contraction of El Eksor, the palaces. Fairholt, Up the Nile, p. 266.
Changes and Errors 343
We find the word Trajectus in Atrecht or Arras (Atrebatum Trajectus), Maestrecht (Mosae Trajectus), and Utrecht (Ultra Trajectum).^
The Romanised Celtic suffix iacum is changed into ay in France and ach in Germany, while in Brittany and Cornwall the original form is ordinarily retained.^ Thus Cortoriacum is now Courtray, Camaracum is Cambray, Bagacum is Bavay, and Tournacum is Toumay. Antunacum is now Andernach, Olimacum is Lymbach, Vallacum is Wilnpach, and Magontiacum is Maintz.
The manner in which personal names have entered into the names of places has been referred to in a previous chapter.^ A few instances may be here again enumerated as affording ad- mirable illustrations of diverse phonetic tendencies. Thus the name of Augustus is found in the Spanish Zaragossa (Caesarea Augusta), and Badajoz (Pax Augusta); in the Italian Aosta (Augusta); in the French Aoust (Augusta), Auch (Augusta), and All tun (Augustodunum); in the German Augsburg (Augusta), and Augst (Augusta); and the English Aust passage (Trajectus Augusti). We find the word Julius or Julia in Lillebonne (Julia Bona), Loudon (Juliodunum), in Beja in Portugal (Pax Julia), in Jiilich or Juliers (Julicacum), in Zuglio (Julium), and in Friuli and Frejus (Forum Julii); and the name of Constantins or Constantinus is found in Conz, Coutances, Cotantin, Constanz, and Constantinople. Some additional changes, valuable as illustrating phonetic laws, are added in a note.**
The changes that have hitherto been discussed may be con- sidered as natural phonetic changes — changes bringing com- binations of letters from one language into harmony with the laws of another.
We have now to consider a class of corruptions which have
^ The word trajectus may have sometimes been confounded with the Celtic iraeth, sands. See Diefenbach, Origines Europcece, p. 429; De Belloguet, Ethnog. p. 139; Ludlow, in Philology Trans, for 1857, p. 15.
* E.g. Plabenec, Bourbriac, Loudeac, and Gourarec in Brittany, and Bradock, Boconnoc, Isnioc, Ladock, Phillack, Polbathick, and Polostoc in Cornwall.
* See pp. 294, 295, supra.
* Eburovices and Evreux, Vesontio and Besan^on, Vinovium and Bin- chester, Bononia and Boulogne, Chatti and Hesse, Aquitania and Guienne, Olisippo and Lisbon, Agrigentum and Girgenti, Aletium and Lecci, Aquae and iUx. In French names a final n or s is often added, as in the case of Dibio and Dijon, Matesco and Ma^on, Brigantio and Briangon, Massilia and Marseilles, Londinium and Londres.
Words and Places
344
arisen from a totally different cause. Men have ever felt a natural desire to assign a plausible meaning to names — to make them, in fact, no longer sounds, but words. How few children, conning the atlas, do not connect some fanciful speculations with such names as the Calf of Man, or Ireland’s Eye; they suppose that Jutland is the land which juts out,” instead of the land of the Jutes; ^ they suppose that Cape Horn has received its name, not, as is the fact, from the birth-place of its discoverer,^ but because it is the extreme southern horn of the American continent, and names like the Orange River or the Red Sea are, unhesitatingly, supposed to denote the colour of the waters, instead of being, the first a reminiscence of the extension of the Dutch empire under the house of Orange, and the second a translation ^ of the Sea of Edom.^
This instinctive causativeness of the human mind, this perpetual endeavour to find a reason or a plausible explana- tion for everything, has corrupted many of the words which we have in daily use,^ and a large allowance for this source of error must be made when we are investigating the original forms of ancient names. No cause has been more fruitful in producing corruptions than popular attempts to explain from the vernacular, and to»,bring into harmony with a supposed
^ Trench, Study of Words, p. 86.
^ See p. 38, supra.
® So the Yellow Sea and Palmyra are translated names. Magna, the Roman station, is now Car-voran, from the Celtic vawr, great.
^ Similar misconceptions are Blackheath (bleak heath) ; the Isle of Wight, seep. 289; Trinidad, p. 27; Gateshead, pp. 191, 192, supra. Florida is not the flowery land, but the land discovered on Easter Day, Pascua florida, p. 27. The Finster-aar-horn is not, as guidebooks tell us, the peak of the Black Eagle, but the peak which gives rise to the glacier of the black Aar.
® We may enumerate the well-known instances of buffetier corrupted into beefeater, lustrino into lute-string, asparagus into sparrow-grass, coat-cards into court-cards, shuttlecork into shuttlecock, mahlerstock into maulstick, ecrevisse into crayfish, dormeuse into dormouse, dent de lion into dandy lion, quelques choses into kickshaws, contre danse into country dance, ver de gris into verdigrease, weissager into wiseacre, and hausenblase or stm*- geon’s bladder into isinglass. A groom used to call Othello and Desdemona — two horses under his charge — by the names of Old Fellow and Thursday Morning. The natives called Miss Rogers (authoress of Domestic Life in Palestine) by the name of narajus, “ the lily,” as the nearest approxi- mation to her name which they were able to pronounce. Ibrahim Pacha, during his visit to England, was known to the mob as Abraham Parker. See Whewell, in Philolog. Proceedings, vol. v. p. 138; Wedgwood, in Philolog. Trans, for 1855, pp. 66-71; Wilton, Negeb, pp. 140, 218; Farrar, Origin of Language, pp. 57, 58; May hew, German Life and Manners, vol. ii. p. 404; Dixon, Surnames, -p. v, ; Trench, English Past and Present, pp. 243-253; Study of Words, p. 87.
Changes and Errors 345
etymology, names whose real explanation is to be sought in some language known only to the learned.^ Names, significant in the vernacular, are constructed out of the ruins of the ancient unintelligible names, just as we find the modem villages of Mesopotamia built of bricks stamped with the cuneiform legend of Nebuchadnezzar. 2
Teutonic nations, for instance, inhabiting a country covered with ancient Celtic names, have unconsciously endeavoured to twist those names into a form in which they would be susceptible of explanations from Teutonic sources. The instances are innumerable. The Celtic words alt maen mean high rock. In the Lake District this name has been transformed into the Old Man of Coniston.^ In the Orkneys a conspicuous pyramid of rock, 1500 feet in height, is called the Old Man of Hoy; and two rocks on the Cornish coast go by the name of the Old Man and his Man. The Dead Man, another Cornish headland, is an Anglicisation of the Celtic dod maen. Brown Willy, a Cornish ridge, some 1370 feet in height, is a corruption of Bryn Huel, the tin-mine ridge.'* Abermaw', the mouth of the Maw, is commonly called Barmouth;® Kinedar has been changed into King Edward; Dun-y-coed, a wooded hill ’’ in Devonshire, is now called the Dunagoat; and Eastbourne was, no doubt, the eas-bourne,® or water-brook; the t having crept in from a desire to make the Celtic prefix significant in English.'^
Similar transformations of Celtic and Sclavonic names are to be found on the Continent.® In Switzerland the Celtic Vito- durum has been Germanised into Winterthur;® Noviomagus is now Nimwegen; Alcmana is Altmiihl; and the Freudenbach, or joyful brook, is, probably, a corruption of the Celtic §rydan,
^ Erroneous etymologies are unfortunately by no means confined to the unlearned. Witness Baxter’s derivation of Kirkcudbright {i.e. Church of St. Cuthbert). It is, he sdLjs, forsan, Caer giu aber rit, i.e. Arx trajectus fluminei ^Estuarei ! ! Glossarium, p. 40.
^ See Edinburgh Review ^ vol. xciv. p. 331.
’ Davies, in Philolog. Trans, for 1855, p. 219.
* Welli, or wheal, which occurs so often in the mining share list, is a corruption of the word huel^ a tin mine.
® Baxter, Glossarium, p. 69.
® A reduplicated name. See p. 163, supra.
’ Gough’s Camden, vol. i. p. 296.
* See a paper by Forstemann in Kuhn’s Zeitschrift, vol. i. p. 10, seq. The numerous instances given by Mone, in his Celtische Forschungen, must be received with caution.
* Forstemann, AU-deut. Namenbuch, vol. ii. p. 446.
Forstemann, Ortsnamen, p. 313.
Words and Places
346
a stream.^ The Sclavonic Potsdupimi has become Potsdam, Melraz is Miillrose, and Dubrawice Dummerwitz.^
Anglo-Saxon and Norse names have not escaped similar metamorphoses. The name of Maidenhead has given rise to the myth that here was buried the head of one of the eleven thousand virgins of Cologne/ but Mayden hithe, the ancient form of the name, shows that it was the wharf midway between Marlow and Windsor. So Maidstone and Magdeburg are not the towns of maids, but the town on the Medway, and the town on the plain Hungerford, on the border between the Saxons and the Angles, was anciently Ingleford, or the ford of the Angles.^
Fitful Head, in Shetland, familiar to all readers of the Waverley Novels as the abode of Norna in The PiratCy has received its present not inappropriate name, by reason of a misconception of the original Scandinavian name Hvit-felly the white hill; ® Cape Wrath, beaten, it is true, by wrathful storms, was originally Cape Hvarf, a Norse name, indicating a point where the land trends in a new direction; ^ and the Norse Vedra- fiority the firth of Rams (wethers), is now Waterford in Ireland.
In the Lake District we also find some curious transforma- tions of Norse names. Silly Wreay is the happy nook. Cunning Garth is the King’s Yard, Candy Slack is the bowl-shaped hollow.®
As might have been expected, French and Norman names in England have been peculiarly liable to suffer from these causes. Chateau Verty in Oxfordshire, has been converted into Shotover Hill; Beau chef into Beachy Head; and Burgh W alter , the castle of Walter of Douay, who came over with the Conqueror, now
^ Forstemann, Ortsnamen, p. 314. On the Germanisation of Sclavonic names see a paper by Bronisch in the Neues Lausitzisches Magazin, vol. xvii. pp. 57-73*
2 Mone, Celt. Forsch. p. 7. Mone thinks the Oelbach, or oily brook, is from the Irish oil, a stone, and that the Teufelstein, or Devil’s Stone, is from the Celtic duhhail, the black rock. Ibid. p. 175.
3 The Cologne myth of the eleven thousand virgins seems to have arisen from the name of St. Undecemilla, a virgin mart)^:. The insertion of a single letter in the calendar has changed this name into the form, “ Undecem millia Virg. Mart.” The bones of the eleven thousand, which are reverently shown to the pious pilgrim, have been pronounced by Professor Owen to comprise the remains of all the quadrupeds indigenous to the district.
^ See p. 177, supra. For the legends respecting the Mons Puellarum, as Magdeburg was called, see Panzer, Dent. Myth. pp. 122, 272, 370.
® Inglefield, in the immediate neighbourhood, has retained the ancient form. See Gough’s Camden, vol. i. p. 215.
Symington, Faroe and Iceland, p. 8.
^ Laing. H eimskringla, vol. i. p. 144.
® Cf. Mealy Sike, Heedless Gill, etc. Ferguson, Northmen, p. 126.
Changes and Errors 347
appears in the form of Bridgewater. Beau lieu in Monmouth- shire, Grand pont, the great bridge over the Fal in Cornwall, and Bon gue, or the good ford, in Suffolk, have been Saxonised into Bewley Woods, Grampound,^ and Bungay. I^eighton Beau- desert has been changed into Leighton Buzzard ; and the brazen eagle which forms the lectern in the parish church is gravely exhibited by the sexton to passing strangers as the origind buzzard from which the town may be supposed to derive its name.^
In Canada, where an English-speaking population is en- croaching on the old French settlers, the same process of verbal translation is going on. Les Cheneaux,’’ or channels, on the River Ottawa, are now the Snows. So Les Chats ’’ and Les Joachims ” on the same river are respectively becoming the Shaws and the Swashings, while a mountain near the head of the Bay of Fundy, called the “ Chapeau Dieu,” from the cap of cloud which often overhangs it, is now known as the Shepody Mountain. The River Quah-Tah-Wah-Am-Quah-Duavic in New Brunswick, probably the most breakjaw compound in the Gazetteer, has had its name justifiably abbreviated into the Petamkediac, which has been further transformed by the lumberers and hunters into the Tom Kedgwick.^
Anse des Cousins, the Bay of Mosquitoes, has been turned by English sailors into Nancy Cousins Bay; they have changed Livorno into Leg-hom; and the nautical mind has canonised a new saint, unknown even to the Bollandists, by the change of Setubal into St. Ubes. So Hagenes, the Norse name of one of the Scilly Isles, has become St. Agnes.'* Soracte, the mountain whose snowy summit is sung by Horace,^ has been added to the list of saints by the Italian peasantry, and receives their prayers under the name of St. Oreste.® The name and legend of St. Goar, who is said to have dwelt in a cavern on the Rhine, where the river furiously eddies round the Lurlei rock, is supposed by certain sceptics to have originated in a corruption of the German word gewirr, a whirlpool.^ In this instance it is
^ Gough’s Camden, vol. i. p. 20.
® The French colony of Beauregard, in Brandenburg, has been Ger- manised into Burengaren or Bauerngarten (peasants’ garden). Forste- mann, in Kuhn’s Zeitschrifi, vol. i. p. 21.
* Hon. Arthur Gordon, n in Vacation Tourists for 1862-3, p. 484; Quarterly Review, vol. cxvi. p. 27.
^ Times, March 26, 1864.
® Vides, ut alta stet nive candidum Soracte.
• Duke of Buckingham, Private Diary, vol. iii. p, 171; Whewell, in Philolog. Proceedings, vol. v. p. 141.
’ Mayhew, German Life at^ Manners, vol. ii. pp. 370, 398.
Words and Places
348
not improbable that the hagiologists may be right and the philologists wrong. The name of a well-lmown saint is some- times substituted for one less familiar. Thus St. Aldhelm’s Head^ in Dorset, has become St. Alban’s Head.^ Occasionally the name of the saint apparently disappears, submerged beneath some obtrusively tempting etymology, as in the case of St. Maidulf’s borough, which has become Marlborough.
The Hebrew name Jerusalem was reproduced under the form Hierosolyma, the holy city of Solomon, owing to a mistaken derivation from the Greek lep6<s.^ A mountain on the eastern coast of Africa, opposite Aden, received the Arabic name of Gebel Fiel (elephant mountain), from the remarkable resemblance of the outline to the back of the elephant. From the resemblance of the sound the name was corrupted in the Periplus into Mons Felix.^
Many instances may be cited of the manner in which legends are prone to gather round these altered names. The citadel of Carthage was called Bozra, a Phoenician word meaning an acropolis. The Greeks connected this with ^vpcra, an ox-hide, and then, in harmony with the popular notions of Tyrian acute- ness, an explanatory legend was concocted, which told how the traders, who had received permission to possess as much land as an ox-hide would cover, cut the skin into narrow strips, with which they encompassed the spot on which the Carthaginian fortress was erected.^
We find the same legend repeated in the traditions of other countries. The name of Thong castle, near Sittingboume, is derived from the Norse word tungay a tongue of land, which we find in the Kyle of Tongue in Sutherlandshire. This name has given rise to the tradition that Dido’s device was here repeated by Hengist and Horsa. The same story is told of Ivar, son of Regnar Lodbrok, in order to account for the name of Thong Castor, near Grimsby.^
1 Farrar, Origin of Language^ p. 59. The process of the creation of new saints is illustrated by the case of the eleven thousand virgins (see p. 346, supra) y as well as by that of St. Veronica, whose name arose from a transposition of the letters of the mongrel phrase vera icon. See Whewell, in Philolog. Proceed, vol. v. p. 141 ; Yonge, Christian Names, vol. i. p. 424.
2 Trench, English Past and Present, p. 237; Farrar, Origin of Lang. P- 59‘
® Buckingham, Autobiography, vol. ii. p. 395.
* Bochart, vol. hi. p. 470; Trench, English Past and Present, p. 238.
®The legend is found also among the Thuringians and the Russians. Grimm, Deut. Rechtsalt. p. 90, apud Pictet, Orig. Indo-Europ. part ii. p. 51 ; Latham, Channel Isles, p. 338; Gough* s Camden, vol. h. p. 338; Verstegan, Restitution, p. 133; Skinner, Etymol. s. v.
Changes and Errors 349
The legend of the victory gained by Guy of Warwick, the Anglian champion, over the dun cow, most probably originated in a misunderstood tradition of his conquest of the Dena gau, or Danish settlement in the neighbourhood of Warwick.^
The name of Antwerp denotes, no doubt, the town which sprang up “ at the wharf.” But the word Antwerpen approxi- mates closely in sound to the Flemish handt werpen, hand throwing. Hence arose the legend of the giant who cut off the hands of those who passed his castle without paying him black- mail, and threw them into the Scheldt.^
The legend of the wicked Bishop Hatto is well known. It has been reproduced by Southey in a popular ballad, and it is annually retailed and discussed on the decks of the Rhine steamers. At a time of dearth he forestalled the com from the poor, but was overtaken by a righteous Nemesis — having been devoured by the swarming rats, who scaled the walls of his fortress in the Rhine. The origin of this legend may be traced to a corruption of the name of the maut-thurm, or custom-house, into the Mause-Thurm, or Mouse-tower.^
The story of Roland the crusader, and his hapless love for the daughter of the Lord of Drachenfels, is perhaps a still greater favourite with the fairer portion of the Rhine tourists. It is sad to have to reject the pathetic tale, but a stem criticism derives the name of Rolandseck from the rolling waves of the swift current at the bend of the river, which caused the place to be called the rollendes-ecke by the passing boatmen.**
Near Grenoble is a celebrated tower, which now bears the name of La Tour Sans Venin, the tower without poison. The peasantry firmly believe that no poisonous animal can exist in its neighbourhood. The superstition has arisen from a cor- ruption of the original saint-name of San Verena into sans venin^ The superstitions which avouch that birds fall dead in attempting to fly across the Dead Sea and the Lake Avemus (aopvos) have originated in similar etymological fancies.
In the Swedish language a woman is called quinna, or quinn, a word nearly allied to the obsolescent English word quean, ^ as
^ Donaldson, English Ethnography, p. 54.
* Motley, Dutch Republic, vol. i. p. 71 1; Salverte, Essai sur les Nonis, vol. ii. p. 294; Charnock, Local Etymology, p. 14. The giant was killed by Brabo, the eponymus of Brabant.
3 Forstemann, in Kuhn’s Zeitschrift fur Vergleich. Sprachforschung, vol. i. p. 6.
* Mayhew, German Life and Manners, vol. ii. p. 405.
^ Max Miiller, Lectures, 2nd series, p. 368.
® Gay speaks of “ the dread of every scolding quean.”
Words and Places
350
well as to the appellation of the highest lady in the land. The Finns also call themselves Qvoens, a Euskarian word, which is no way related to the Teutonic root. The misunderstood assertions of travellers as to this nation of Qvoens gave rise to the legend respecting a tribe of Northern Amazons ruled over by a woman. This myth must have come into existence even so early as the time of Tacitus, and we find it repeated by the geographer of Ravenna, by King Alfred, and by Adam of Bremen.^ The last-named writer confuses all our notions of ethnological propriety by the assertion that there are Turks to be found in Finland. He has evidently been misled by the fact that Turku was the ancient enchorial synonym for the city of Abo.2
Pilatus, the mountain which overhangs Lucerne, takes its name from the cap of cloud which frequently collects round this western outlier of the mountains of Uri. The name has origi- nated the poetic myth of the banished Pilate, who, torn by remorse, is said to have haunted the rugged peak, and at last to have drowned himself in the lonely tarn near the summit of the mountain.®
Drepanum, now Trapani, in Sicily, was so called from the sickle-shaped curve of the sea-shore — SpeTravov^ a sickle. A Greek legend, preserved by Pausanias, affirms that the name is a record of the fact that it was here Kronos threw away the sickle with which he had killed Uranos.^ And various myths have clustered round the river Lycus, as if it had been the Wolf river (Xvkos, a wolf) instead of the White river (\evKos, white), as is no doubt the case.®
The names of the countries and nations have often suffered in this way. The Celtic name Pehta, or PeictUy ‘‘ the fighters,’’ has been Latinised into Picti, the painted savages of the Scottish Lowlands.® In the case of the Berbers, a people in
^ “ Circa haec litora Baltic! maris ferunt esse Amazonas, quod nunc terra feminarum dicitur,” etc. Adam of Bremen, De situ Danice, p. 15. See also Zeuss, Die Deutschen, p. 687; Prichard, Researches, vol. hi. p. 273; Latham, Nationalities of Europe, vol. i. p. 164; Latham-, Germania, p. 174; Buckle, Hist, of Civilisation, vol. i. p. 275.
* De situ Danice, p. ii ; Cooley, Hist, of Maritime and Inland Discovery, vol. i. p. 211; Buckle, Hist, of Civilis. voX. i. p. 275.
®Salverte, Essai sur les Noms, vol. h. p. 291; Murray, Handbook for Switzerland, p. 39.
* Movers, Phonizier, pt. ii. vol. ii. p. 312; Welsford, English Language,
p. 194.
* So around the name of the Lycian Apollo, the light-giver, have collected mythologic legends of the wolf- destroyer. Muller, Dorians, vol. i. p. 315.
* See p. 74, supra ; Trench, Study of Words, p. 86.
Changes and Errors 351
Northern Africa, the e in the enchorial name seems to have been changed into an a, from a desire to establish a connection with the Greek word fiappapoi, and the name of Barbary still remains on our maps to remind us of the error.^
A similar instance of the change of a single letter in accordance with a fancied etymology occurs in the case of the Tatar hordes, which, in the thirteenth century, burst forth from the Asiatic steppes. This terrible invasion was thought to be a fulfilment of the prediction of the opening of the bottomless pit, spoken of in the ninth chapter of the Revelation, and in order to bring the name into relation with Tartarus, the word Tatar was written, and still continues to be written, in the form Tartar?
Our English name of Poland is likewise founded on a mis- conception. The country consists of vast plains, and from the Sclavonic polie, a plain, is derived the German plural form Polen or Pohlen, the men of the plains. In the old English writers we meet with the name Polayn, which is an admissible Anglicisation of the German word. But the more recent change of Polayn into Poland is due to the desire of substituting an intelligible word for an unintelligible sound. The correct formation, following the analogous case of Switzerland, would be Polenland.
So the Arabic Moslemin, already a plural form, has been corrupted into Mussulman, which is taken for a singular, and from which have been formed those anomalous double plurals — Mussulmen and Mussulmans.^
Negropont, the modem name of the island of Euboea, is a corruption due, probably, to Genoese and Venetian mariners. The channel dividing the island from the mainland was anciently called Euripus, in allusion to the swiftness of the current; and at one time the land on either side projected so far as nearly
^ See pp. 60, 61, supra; Barth, vol. i. p. 224 ; Clovers, Die Phonizier , pt. ii. vol. ii. pp. 390, 391; cf. Gibbon, Decline and Fall, vol. vi. p. 427, chap. li. The name of the Berbers is found in an ancient Egyptian inscrip- tion. Kenrick, Ancient Egypt, vol. ii. p. 248. In the time of Herodotus the word ^dp^apoL was applied to all nations who spoke languages unintel- ligible to the Greeks. Afterwards it was restricted to all tribes beyond the pale of the Roman empire, and is now confined to certain tribes of Northern Africa.
* Plebs Sathanae detestanda Tartarorum . . . exeuntes ad instar da?- monum solutorum a tartaro, ut bene Tartari, quasi tartarei nuncupentur.. Matt. Paris, Hist. Major, p. 546, a.d. 1240. See p. 74, supra ; Prichard, Researches, vol. iv. p. 278; Wedgwood, in Philolog. Trans, for 1855, p. 72; Edinburgh Rev. vol. xciv. p. 308; Trench, English Past and Present, p. 239; Buckle, Hist, of Civilisation, vol. i. p. 288.
® See Forstemann, in Kuhn’s Zeitschrift, vol. i. p. 17.
352 Words and Places
to bridge the space between the two shores. The town built at this spot received the name of the channel, and was called Evripo, or Egripo, a name which has been converted by Italian sailors into Negripo, or Negropont, the black bridge; ” and, finally, the name of the town was extended to the whole island.^
Some of the most curious transformations which have been effected by popular attempts at etymologising are those which have taken place in the names of the streets of London.
Sheremoniers Lane was so called from being the dwelling- place of the artizans whose business it was to shear or cut bullion into shape, so as to be ready for the die. The name, as its origin became forgotten, passed into Sheremongers Lane, and after a while, from the vicinity of St. Paul’s Cathedral, and an analogy with Amen Corner, Ave Maria Lane, and Paternoster Row, it became Sermon Lane.^ Aiter the loss of Calais and its dependencies, the artizans of Hames and Guynes, two small towns in the vicinity of Calais, took refuge in England. A locality in the east of London was assigned for their residence, and this naturally acquired the name of the old home from which they had been expelled, and was called Hames et Guynes. The vicinity of the place of execution on Tower Hill probably suggested the change of the name to Hangman’s Gains.^ Among many similar changes we may enumerate that of the Convent of the Chartreuse into the chartered school now called the Charter House. Guthurun Lane, which takes its name from some old Danish burgher, has become Gutter Lane, the change having been, doubtless, suggested by the defective condition of the drainage. Grasschurch Street, where the old grass market was held, became — first. Gracious Street, and then Gracechurch Street. Knightengild Lane has become Nightingale Lane, Mart Lane is now changed to Mark Lane, Desmond Place to Dead- man’s Place, Snore Hill to Snow Hill, Candlewick Street to Cannon Street, Strype’s Court to Tripe Court, Leather Hall to Leadenhall, Cloister Court, Blackfriars to Gloster Court, Lomes-
^ Talbot, English Etymologies^ p. 53 \ Salverte, Essai sur les Noms, vol. ii. p. 301; Bremer, Greece, vol. ii. p. 89. So also the name of the Morea seems to have arisen from a transposition of the letters of .Romea, the ancient name. The usual explanation is that the name Morea is due to the resemblance of the peninsula in shape of a mulberry leaf. This is too abstract an idea, and it argues a knowledge of geographical contour which w'ould hardly be possessed by the mediaeval sailors among whom the name arose. See Salverte, Essai sur les NomSy vol. ii. p. 305.
* Cunningham, Handbook of London, p. 734.
* Stow, Survey, book v. p. 299 ; Cunningham, Handbook, p. 369,
Changes and Errors 353
bury to Bloomsbury^ St. Olave’s Street to Tooley Street/ St. Osyth’s Lane to Sise Lane^ St. Peter’s-ey to Battersea, and Stebenhithe to Stepney .2
In New York there is a square called Grammercy Square, a name popularly supposed to be of French origin. But the true etymology is indicated in one of the old Dutch maps, in which we find that the site is occupied by a pond called De Kromme Zee, the crooked lake.
In addition to the corruptions already considered, there are misnomers which are due to mistakes or misconceptions on the part of those by whom the names were originally bestowed. Prominent among these is one which has been already referred to, and which has bestowed the name of Amerigo Vespucci upon the continent which Columbus had discovered. The names of the West Indies, and of the Red Indians of North America, are due to the sanguine supposition of Columbus that his daring enterprise had in truth been rewarded by the discovery of a new passage to the shores of India. The name of Canada is due to a mistake of another kind. Canada is the enchorial word for ‘‘ a village.’’ When the French explorers first sailed up the St. Lawrence, it would seem that, pointing to the land, they asked its name, while the natives thought they inquired the name given to the collected wigwams on the shore, and replied Canada.^
A notable instance of a name arising from an erroneous
^ Compare the name of Tibbs Row, in Cambridge, a corruption of St. Ebbe’s Row.
^ The curious transformations in the signs of inns have often been com- mented upon. For instance, we have the change of the Belle Sauvage to the Bell and Savage; the Pige washael, or the Virgin’s greeting, to the Pig and Whistle; the Boulogne Mouth, i.e. the mouth of Boulogne harbour, the scene of a naval victory, to the Bull and Mouth ; the Bacchanals to the Bag o’ Nails; the vintner’s sign of the Swan with two Nicks to the Swan with two Necks; and the Three Gowts (sluices) in Lincoln, to the Three Goats. Mr. Wedgwood, however, in a paper in the Transactions of the Philological Society for 1855, pp. 62-72, is inclined to hold as apocryphal some of the cases usually cited. Cf. Whewell, in Phil. Proc. voL v. p. 140; Timbs, Curiosities of London ^ pp. 397-402; Taylor, Antiquitates Curiosce^ p. 60; Cunningham, Handbook. Cf. also the change of the name of the lust-garten, or tea-garden, called Philomeles lust, nightingales’ delight, into Viellmann^s lust, many men’s delight. Forstemann, in Kuhn’s Zeitschrift, vol. i. p. 21.
^ Notes and Queries, vol. ii. p. 428; Cooley, History of Maritime and Inland Discovery, vol. ii. p. 140; Charnock, Local Etymol. p. 58; Drake, Book of the Indians, book i. p. 23. The etymology from the Indian words kan, mouth, and ada, a country, has also been suggested. The etymology from the Portuguese ca nada, “ Here is nothing,” has been gravely pro- posed! This Portuguese exclamation is supposed to express the dis- appointment of the French discoverers at the desolate aspect of the country.
Words and Places
354
ethnological guess occurs in the case of the Gipsies. Their complexion^ their language, and many of their customs, prove them to be a Turanian tribe which has wandered from the hill- country of India. Dr. Wilson, an Indian missionary, found some gipsies in Palestine with whom he could converse in one of the dialects of Western India. When they appeared in Europe in the beginning of the fifteenth century, their dark complexion and their unknown language seem to have suggested the erroneous ethnological guess that they were Egyptians, a word which has been corrupted into Gipsies. Their own name for themselves, Romani, indicates their temporary sojourn in the “ Roman ” colony of Wallachia.^ A belief that they came immediately from Eastern Europe is also implied by the French name Bohemiens, unless, indeed, as has been suggested, the name Bohemian be derived from an old French word hoem, a Saracen.^ The Danes and Swedes regard them as Tatars, the Dutch call them Heiden or Heathen, the Spaniards call them Gitanos (Gentiles^), and the Germans and Italians call them Ziganaar, Zigeuner, or Zingari, that is, the wanderers.**
^ See p. 58, supra, note.
* In Germany they are popularly regarded as Saracens. Pott, Zigeuner, vol. i. p. 30.
® Or, perhaps, a corruption of the name Egjrptians. Pott, Zigeuner, vol. i. p. 31.
^ See Buyers, Northern India, pp. 151-153; Gardner, Brazil, p. 147; Frontier Lands of the Christian and the Turk, vol. i. p. 385; Trench, Study of Words, p. 86; Pott, Die Zigeuner in Europa und Asien, vol. i. p. 58; Mchard, Researches, vol. iv. p. 616.
CHAPTER XVII
WORDS DERIVED FROM PLACES
Growth of Words out of Names — Process of transformation — Examples; cherry, peach, chestnut, walnut, quince, damson, Guernsey lily, currant, shallot, coffee, cocoa, and rhubarb — ^Tobacco — Names of wines and liqueurs — Gin, negus, and ^og — Names of animals: turkey, ermine, sable — Breeds of horses — Fish — Names of minerals: load- stone, magnet, agate, jet, nitre, ammonia — ^Textile fabrics — Manu- factures of the Arabs: muslin, damask, gauze, fustian — Manufactures of the Flemings: cambric, diaper, duck, ticking, frieze — Republics of Northern Italy — Cravats — Worsted — Names of vehicles — ^The coach — Names of weapons — Inventions called from the name of the inventor — Pasquinade, punch, harlequin, charlatan, vaudeville — Mythical derivations — Names of coins — Moral significance attached to words derived from Ethnic Names — Examples: Gothic, bigot, cretin, frank, romance, gasconade, lumber, ogre, fiend, slave — Names of servile races — Tariff — Cannibal — Assassin — Spruce — W ords derived from the practice of pilgrimage : saunter, roam, canter, fiacre, tawdry, flash — History of the word p^ace.
All local names were once words. This has been the text of the preceding chapters; we have hitherto been endeavouring to make these words — ^long dumb — once more to speak out their meaning, and declare the lessons which they have to teach. We now come to the converse proposition. Many words were once local names. We find these words in all stages of the process of metamorphosis — some unchanged — some so altered as to be scarcely recognisable. In fact, it is only by watching the process of transmutation in actual progress in the linguistic laboratory of Nature that we are able to trace the identity of some of the products, so strangely are they altered.
Let us take a few familiar instances. So short a time has elapsed since the introduction of French beans or Brussels’ sprouts, that the names have undergone no phonetic changes — the information which they convey needs no interpreter. We may now proceed to an analogous case where the first stage in the transformation of names into words has already commenced. We have almost ceased to speak of Swede turnips, Ribstone pippins ^ or Savoy cabbages, but the adjectives Swede, Ribstone, and Savoy have already become substantives, and the farmer ^ First grown in the garden of Ribstone Hall in the West Riding.
355
Words and Places
356
talks of his Swedes and the gardener of his Ribstones and his Savoys. In these instances the words themselves have as yet remained uncorrupted; but in the case of the cherries called Maydukes a further process of transformation has taken place. The word Mayduke is a corruption or Anglicisation of the name Medoc^ a town in the Gironde^ from which these cherries were introduced.^ But the word Cherry is itself a local name^ still more disguised^ since it has passed through the alembic of two or three languages instead of one. The English word Cherry, the German Kirsche^ and the French Cerise^ all come to us from the Greek, through the Latin, and inform us that this fruit was first introduced from Cerasus,^ a town on the Black Sea.
We shall find it instructive thus to examine the names of a few of our common plants and animals, with the double object of tracing historically the process by which words become disguised, and of showing the aid which etymology is able to render to the naturalist.
To begin with the Peach. This word, like Cherry, has had an adventurous life, and has retained still less resemblance to its original form, the initial p alone remaining to remind us of the native country of the peach. The English word is derived immediately from the old French pesche. The s, which has been dropped in the English form, gives us a clue to the origin of the word; and when we find that the Italian name is pesca or persica, the Spanish persigo, and the Latin persicum, we dis- cover that the peach is a Persian fruit.^ The Nectarine comes also from the same region, but tells us its story in a different way. The name is itself a Persian word, meaning ‘‘ the best ’’ kind of peach; and the Latin name of Apricots,® mala armeniaca, refers them to a neighbouring district.
The Chestnut is often improperly spelt chesnut, as if it were the cheese-like nut. But the mute which could never have crept into the word, whatever may be the danger of its ultimate disappearance, is valuable as an indication of the true etymology, as well as of the country in which the tree was indigenous. The French Chataigne or Chastaigne, and still more plainly the
^ Sankey, Portfeuille, p. 52.
* Compare the Armenian geras, and the Persian cardsiyha.
^ Now, probably, Kheresoun. See, however, Pictet, Orig, Indo-Europ, part i. p. 244.
^Talbot, English Etymologies, p. 475; Diez, Etym. Worterb. p. 259. Compare the Dutch name persikboom,
^ Abricot is an Arabic word. For its curious history see Engelmann, Glossaire, p. 13.
Words Derived from Places 357
Italian Castagna, and the Dutch Kastanie, point us to Castanasa, in Thessaly, as its native place.^
The London urchins, whose horticultural studies have been confined to Covent Garden, probably suppose that the Walnut is a species of Wallfruit. In German, however, the word takes the form Wdlsche Nutz, which would indicate that it is either the foreign nut, or the nut from Walschland or Italy Though the former is, perhaps, the more probable etymology, yet we must remember that the walnut is pre-eminently the tree of Northern Italy, as will be acknowledged by all who have rested beneath the spreading shade of the gigantic walnut-trees of the Pied- montese valleys, or who have crossed the wide plains of Lom- bardy where the country for miles and miles is one vast walnut orchard, with the vines swinging in graceful festoons from tree to tree.
The word Quince preserves only a single letter of its original form. The English word is a corruption of the French coing^ which we may trace through the Italian cotogna to the Latin cotonium or cydonium malum, the apple of Cydon, a town in Crete.
The cherry, the peach, the quince, and the chestnut are very ancient denizens of Western Europe. Not so the Damson, which was only imported a few centuries ago. If we write the word according to the older and more correct fashion — damascene — we are able at once to trace its identity with the Prunum Damascenum, or plum from Damascus.* The Damask Rose came from the same city in the reign of Henry VII., and we learn how rapidly the culture of the beautiful flower must have extended from the fact that in less than a century Shake- speare talks of the damask cheek of a rosy maiden, showing that the name had already become an English word.^
The science of etymological botany has its pitfalls, which
^ See, however, Pictet, Orig. Indo-Europ. part i. p. 249.
^ See p. 61, supra ; Talbot, English Etymol. p. 307; Max Miiller, Lectures, 2nd series, p. 367. Compare the Anglo-Saxon wealh-hnut, and the Old Norse val-hnot.
® See the Romaunt of the Rose : —
“ And many homely trees there were That peaches, coines, and apples here;
Medlers, plummes, peeres, chesteines,
Cherise, of which many one faine is.’*
This passage also exhibits chestnut and cherry in a transitional stage of adoption from the French.
* The Reengage was introduced by one Gage, belonging to an old Suf- folk family of that name. Borrow, Wild Wales, vol. ii. p. 99.
* See Whewell, in Philolog. Proceed, vol. v. p. 136.
Words and Places
358
must be avoided. The Guelder Rose, for instance, is not, as might be supposed, the rose from Guelderland, but the elder rose, as is shown by the natural affinities of the plant, as well as by the ancient spelling of the name.’- An attempt to give a geographical significance to the name has probably led to the modification of the spelling. The same cause has undoubtedly been at work in corrupting the name of the girasole — the Italian turnsole or sunflower — into the Jerusalem Artichoke, out of which some ingenious cook has concocted Palestine soup ! ^
The name of the Guernsey Lily contains a somewhat curious history. The flower is a native of Japan, where it was discovered by Kgempfer, the Dutch botanist and traveller. The ship which contained the specimens of the new plant was wrecked on the coast of Guernsey, and some of the bulbs having been washed ashore, they germinated and spread in the sandy soil. Thence they were sent over to England, in the middle of the seventeenth century, by Mr. Hatton, a botanist, and son of the Governor of Guernsey.^
The small dried grapes called Currants were, in the last century, called ‘‘ corinths,’’ or Corinth grapes, Corinth being the chief port from which they were shipped. The currants of our gardens seem to have received their name from their superficial resemblance to the currants of commerce.
The Shallot, a species of onion, comes to us from Ascalon, as will appear if we trace the name through the French form echalotte, and the Spanish escalona, to the Latin Ascalonia.^ Spinage is, perhaps, olus Hispanicum, and the Arabs call it Hispanach, the Spanish plant.® Coffee has been traced to the mountains of Caffa, south of Abyssinia, where the plant grows wild; and Mocha,® where it was first cultivated, still gives a name to the choicest growth. In like manner Bohea, Congou, Hyson, and Souchong are geographical terms on a map of China. Jalap comes from Xalapa, or Jalapa, a province of Mexico. Another Mexican province, Choco, has given us the names of Chocolate and Cacao. The coco or cocoa nut, how-^
^ Talbot, English Etymologies, p. 88.
* Max Muller, Lectures, second series, p. 368.
* Beckmann, History of Inventions, vol. i. p. 516; Ansted, Channel Islands, p. 499.
* Diez, Etymolog, Worterb. p. 305 ; Menage, Origines, pp. 278, 786.
® Or, perhaps, the name is derived from the spines on the seed- See , Beckmann, Hist, of Inventions, vol. ii. p. 340 ; Notes and Queries, vol. xii. 1
P- 253.
® Hartwig, Tropical World, p. 189.
Words Derived from Places 359
ever, has no botanical ^ or etymological connection with cacao. The Portuguese term for a bugbear is coco^ and the word seems to have been applied to the palm nut on account of the appear- ance of a mask or face which is produced by the three holes at the extremity of the shell.^ Cayenne^ Chilis^ Seville, and China oranges, Peruvian bark, and Brazil nuts are examples of names that have remained undisguised by etymological changes. The Brazil Wood of commerce does not, however, as might have been thought, derive its name from the country; but, on the contrary, that vast empire was so called from the discovery on its shores of a dye wood,^ which produced the Brazil colour, or colour of glowing coals. ^ The slopes of Sinai were formerly overgrown with the Seneh, or wild acacia- tree, a shaggy thorn- bush; and it is more probable that the plant takes its name j from the mountain than the mountain from the plant.® Squills I are possibly from Squillace, and Carraways, Pliny tells us, are , from Caria. Rhubarb is a corruption of Rha harharuniy or Rha \barbaricum (German Rhaiarber, Italian Rabarbaro), the root ifrom the savage banks of the River Rha, or Volga.® Dragon- wort is a curiously corrupted name. It comes from Tarragona in Spain. The word Tamarind is from the Arabic tamarhendiy which means the Indian date.^ Indigo is indtcuniy the Indian dye; and Gamboge is from Cambodia. Jenjibre, the Spanish form of the word Ginger, looks as if the root had been imported from Zanzibar, while the Arabic form Zenjebel seems to point to the mountains of Zend, or Persia. Sugar Candy seems to be
^ The cacao, or cocoa nibs, which produce the beverage, are beans borne in th6 pods of a shrub {Theobroma cacao) ^ which has no resemblance or affinity to the palm-tree {Cocos nucifera), which produces the coco nut, or to the coca or coco {Ery thro xy Ion coca), a herb whose leaves are chewed by the Peruvians, as a powerful stimulant-narcotic. The distinctive spell- ing of these three productions, cacao, cocoa, and coca should be carefully observed. See Burton, Abeokuta, vol. i, p. 47.
, * Marsh, Lectures on English Language, p. 143.
® The Ccesalpinia crista, which grows profusely in the forests of Brazil. Hartwig, Tropical World, p. 240.
*The word brazil is found in our literature as early as the reign of Edward I. Talbot, English Etymologies, p. 451 ; Hinchliff, South American Sketches, p. 232. French braise, Portuguese braza, live coals. Hence the English braser, sometimes improperly written brasier, a vessel for contain- ing live coals.
® Stanley, Jewish Church, p. 108; Sinai and Palestine, p. 18. Cf. Greek fiiLfpp<x=<Tii(fppa, myrrh.
• Huic Rha vicinus est amnis, in cujus superciliis quasdam vegetabilis ejusdem nominis gi^itur radix, proficiens ad usus multiplices medelarum. Ammianus Marcellinus, lib. xxii. cap. 8, § 28. See Muller, Ugrische Volkstamm, vol. ii. p. 87.
’ Diez, Etym. Worterbuch, p. 340; Freytag, vol. i. p. 424, b.
Words and Places
360
from Candia; and this view is supported by the fact that kand is the Turkish word for sugar of every kind.^ The Cypress tree comes from the island of Cyprus, and the Spruce fir is the Prussian fir.
‘‘ There is an herbe/’ says an old voyager, “ which is sowed apart by itselfe, and is called by the inhabitants Vppowoc ; in the West Indies it hath diuers names according to the seuerall places and countreys where it groweth and is used; the Spanyards generally call it Tobacco. The leaues thereof being dried and brought into pouder, they use to take the fume or smoake thereof, by sucking it through pipes made of clay, into their stomacke and head. . . . This Vppowoc is of so precious estimation amongst them (the Indians), that they think their gods are maruellously delighted therewith: whereupon some- time they make hallowed fires, and cast some of the pouder therein for a sacrifice.’^ ^ The general estimation in which the growth of Tobago ^ was held has caused the name of this island to become the general designation of the herbe.” Laodicea, the mother of Seleucus Nicator, gave her name to a city on the Syrian coast, and the herbe ’’ shipped from this port goes by the name of Latakia tobacco — a name which exhibits a curious geographical juxtaposition. Another choice growth is called York River, a name familiar to the readers of telegrams from the seat of war, and derived from the Duke of York, afterwards James II. Cubas, Havannahs, Vevays, and Manillas are also among the diuers names ’’ derived from the seuerall places and countreys where the herbe groweth.’’
The names of wines are, with few exceptions,^ derived from geographical sources. The Chian and the Samian came from islands of the Grecian archipelago. The Falemian, of which
^ In Moslem countries an inordinate quantity of sugar is consumed. A very large number of the Arabic words now existing in the Spanish and Portuguese languages denote preparations of sugar. See Engelmann, Glossaire, passim.
* See Hariot, “ Brief and true report of the new found land of Virginia/' apud Hackluyt, Voyages, vol. iii. p. 271.
* There is also a province of Yucatan called Tabaco. Adelung thinks that the word tobacco is not derived from either of these local names, but vice versd : the word may, perhaps, be derived from the Haitean tambaku, a pipe, or, as some have thought, the word may have been adopted from an Indian name of the plant. Against this it may be urged that the Indian word for tobacco is uppowoc. Wilson, Pre-historic Man, vol. i. p. 383;
Book of the Indians, hook. iw. 6.
* Such as Tent, which is derived from the Spanish tinto, in allusion to its rich colour. The name of Claret is derived from its clearness. No Frenchman, however, speaks of, or drinks, clairet. This is the mixture manufactured solely for the English market.
Words Derived from Places 361
ilorace was so fond, was the produce of a volcanic hill-side near Naples. Falernian has already been driven from the cellar to the schoolroom, and the vine disease threatens to do the same with Canary and Madeira. Cape comes from South Africa. Three of the old provinces of France give their names to Cham- pagne, Burgundy, and Rousillon. There is a vineyard near Rheims called Sillery, Chablis is a town in northern Burgundy not far from Auxerre, and Sauteme is a village near Bordeaux. Medoc is the name of the vast sandy plain which lies between the Gironde and the ocean. The town of Manzanares and the Val de Penas, or valley of rocks, are both in the province of La Mancha. Asti is a town near Marengo. Tokay is situated in the north-east of Hungary.
Many of the wines of commerce, as Bordeaux and Lisbon, receive their English names from the port of shipment rather than from the place of growth. So Port is the wine exported from Oporto, and the wines of Sicily are shipped from Marsala, an Arabic name meaning ‘‘ the Port of God,” and reminding us, as we drink it, of the almost forgotten story of the Mahometan conquests in Southern Europe. Malmsey is a contraction of Malvasia, having been originally shipped from Napoli di Mal- vasia, a port in the Morea.
Malaga and Xeres are also places of export rather than of production. The Spanish x being pronounced like the ch in German, the word sherris, on English lips, is a very fair approxi- mation to the name of the town of Xeres, which, since Shake- speare’s time, has been the grand emporium of the Spanish wine trade. The sack or sherris sack, upon whose excellent ‘‘ twofold operation ” Falstaff so feelingly dilates,^ is Xeres sec, or di*y sherry as we should call it. The term sack was applied to all the dry wines of Canary, Xeres, and Malaga: thus we read of Canary sack, Malaga sack, Xeres sack.^
It would be curious to trace the progress of the perversion whereby the wines which in the fifteenth century used to be correctly designated “ wines of Rhin ” have come to be called Hocks. Hocheim, from which the name is derived, lies on the Mayn and not on the Rhine, and neither the excellence nor the abundance of the Hocheim vintage seems to afford adequate reason for the fact that the name has become a generic term for
^ Henry IV. second part, act iv. scene 2.
* See Hackluyt, apud Redding, Wines, p. 21 1; Drake, Shakspeare and his Times, voh ii. p. 130; Ducange, s. v. saccatum; Ford, Gatherings from Spain, p. 150.
Words and Places
362
the whole of the Rhine wines. It may probably be due to special commercial interests connecting some London firm with Hocheim^ for in no European language except English do these wines go by the name of hocks. It might seem that Johannis- berg, with its white Schloss, Steinbergs Nierstein^ Geisenheim, Rudesheim, Assmannhaus^ or some other of the venerable towns or smiling villages which delight the eye of the traveller, as he passes the romantic ruins and steep vineyards which fringe the broad rolling stream, might have asserted a better claim to bestow their names upon the delicate vintage of the Rhine than an obscure village, which stands upon another river, and which is by no means unsurpassed in the excellence or abundance of its growth.
The volcanic slopes of all the river-banks in this district offer a congenial soil and site for the growth of the vine. Lauben- heim on the Nahe, Lahnstein on the Lahn, and Zeltingen and Piesport on the Moselle, compete with the more celebrated villages on the Rhine and the Mayn. The Germans have a saw which compares the qualities of their chief growths :
“ Rhein-wein, fein wein;
Neckar-wein, lecker wein;
Franken-wein, tranken wein;
Mosel- wein, imnosel wein/'
Hungary Water is said to have been first distilled by Elizabeth, Queen of Hungary.^ Chartreuse is prepared from a recipe in the possession of the monks of the celebrated monastery ruled over by St. Bernard. Curacao ^ came originally from the island of that name in the Caribbean Sea. Cognac is a town in the department of the Charente. Hollands and Schiedam, as their names import, came to us from the Dutch. Since Gin is a contraction of Geneva, it might be supposed that geneva was originally distilled in the city of that name. The word geneva is, however, only an Anglicised form of the Dutch jenever^ the juniper, from the berries of which plant the peculiar flavour is derived. Whiskey is a corruption of the Celtic word uisge, water, a root which, as we have seen,^ appears in the names of the Wisk, Esk, Usk, Exe, Thames, and other Celtic rivers.
^ Beckmann, History of Inventions, vol. i. p. 316.
* Often wrongly spelt Curagoa. Cf. the analogous names Macao, Bilbao, Callao, etc.
* Gin being originally a Dutch drink, the name is undoubtedly derived from the Dutch jmever, rather than from the French equivalent genUvre, as is usually alleged.
* See pp. 157-160, supra.
Words Derived from Places 363
Usquebaugh is the yellow water/’ from the Erse hoy^ yellow. Glenlivat is the name of a highland valley in Banffshire, famous for its stills. Spruce Beer is either Prussian beer, or beer tinctured with the sap of the spruce or Prussian fir. Colonel Negus has been immortalised by the beverage which he first concocted. The etymology of Grog is curious. Admiral Vernon, a sailor of the old school, used to wear a grogram coat,^ and hence the seamen bestowed upon him the nickname of Old Grog,” which was afterwards transferred to the mixture of rum and water which he was the first to introduce into the navy.^
The names of animals, like those of plants, are able to supply us, in many cases, with information as to the countries from which they have been introduced, as well as with examples of the curious phonetic changes which the names of those countries have undergone.
The naturalisation of the Cochin China fowl has been too recent to permit any of these changes to take place. The same is the case with Dorkings and Spanish fowls. The Guinea Fowl came from the Guinea coast,® and the Canary was brought from the Canary Isles in the middle of the sixteenth century.* Bantams came from the Dutch settlement of Bantam in Java. The Pheasant is of much older introduction. The name is derived from the Latin avis phasiana — the Phasian bird — whence we conclude, with Pliny, that the bird was originally brought from the banks of the River Phasis, in Colchis. The Eider Duck takes its name from the River Eider in Holstein, whence, however, the bird has long disappeared. The Turkey was so named by a mistake. It is an American fowl, but was popularly supposed to have come from the Levant. The German name, Kalekuter, would imply that it came from Calicut, and the French Dinde, a contraction of poulet delude, appears to endorse the same error.
Ermine is the fur of the animal of the same name; Chaucer calls it the Armine.® By a parallel phonetic change, Ville
’ The word Grogram is an Anglicisation of the French gros-grain, coarse textured.
® Taylor, Antiquitates Curiosa, p. 58; Notes and Queries, first series, vol. i. pp. 58, 168; Sullivan, of Derivations, p. no.
® The Guinea-pig is a native of Brazil, but it may probably have been originally brought to this country by some ship engaged in the Guinea trade.
* Hence Canary seed and the Canary colour.
® We find also the forms Harmelinus and Arminiae pellis, and the Italian name is Armellino. Diez, Etymol. Worterbuch, p. 26 N 517
Words and Places
364
Hardouin calls the Arminians the Hermines. Hence we may with great probability assign the animal to Armenia, and its scientific name, Mus Ponticus, points to the same region.
The Sable, like the Ermine, bears the corrupted name of a large country. The English form affords no clue to the etymology, but we find that the word in Italian takes the form Zibellino, which appears to be a corruption of Sibelino or Siberino — the fur from Siberia. The Polecat is from Poland. Shamoy leather is often erroneously spelt chamois, as if it were prepared from the hide of the Alpine antelope. But, like Russia or Morocco, the word shamoy has a geographical origin, and means the leather from Samland, a district on the Baltic.
Many of the breeds of domestic cattle are of such recent origin that the names have as yet suffered no corruption. Thus the names of Leicesters, and Southdowns, Devons, and Herefords, as well as of Angolas, Cashmeres, Shetlands, and Newfoundlands, are still in the second stage of word formation.^ In the third stage we may place the Spaniel, which is either the Spanish dog, or the dog from Hispaniola. The Greyhound is the Grecian dog {canis grains). Puss is an endearing corrup- tion of Pers, the Persian cat.^ The meaning of the word Barb ^ is slowly changing; it was at first used strictly of a horse brought from Barbary, just as an Arab was a horse from Arabia. Of kindred blood to Barbs and Arabs is the Spanish horse called a Jennet, a name which may not improbably be derived from Jaen, the capital of one of the Moorish kingdoms in the Penin- sula. Nor have we yet acknowledged all the obligations of our horse-breeders to the Arabian blood. One of the galleons of the Armada, which had succeeded in weathering Cape Wrath and the storm-beaten Hebrides, was lost on the coast of Gallo- way, and tradition avers that a Spanish stallion, rescued from the wreck, became the ancestor of the strong and serviceable breed of Galloways. A curious instance of change of applica- tion in a name occurs in the case of the strong Normand horses which were imported from Rouen. They were called rouens or Roans — a word which has now come to denote the colour of the horse rather than the breed.
Collectors of insects often give topic names to rare or local species, such as the Camberwell beauty, the Kentish glory, the
^ See pp. 355, 356, supra ; and compare the names Chedder, Cheshire, Stilton, Parmesan, etc.
^ Hume, Geographical Terms, p. 9.
^ German barbar : Old French barbare.
Words Derived from Places 365
Bath white; and there are scores of similar names which might be added to the list. The venomous spider called the Tarantula takes its name from Taranto in Southern Italy. The Cantha- rides of the druggist’s shop often go by the name Spanish Flies. Mosquitoes^ however, do not take their name from the Musquito coast, the word being the diminutive of the Spanish word mosca, a fly.^
The Carp is in Latin cupra or cyprinuSy the fish from Cyprus. Sardines are caught off the coast of Sardinia, but we should be wrong in supposing that the Sardine stone or the Sardonyx came to us from that island, for the true origin of these names is to be sought at Sardis in Asia Minor. The loadstone and the magnet are both local names. The Loadstone is a corrupted ^ translation of Lydius lapis y the stone of Lydia. In the same region we must seek for the source of the name Magnet, which is derived from Magnesia, a Lydian city. From Magnesia we also obtain the names of Manganese, or manganesis, Magnesia, and Magnesian Limestone. Copper is cuprum or ces cypriumy the brass of Cyprus.^ The neighbouring island of Crete gave its name to the cretay a sort of pipeclay which the Romans used for seals, the knot with which the packet was tied being enveloped in a ball of clay, and the seal impressed upon it. From the Latin creta the English adjective Cretaceous has been formed, and from the same root we get our Crayons through the medium of the French craie. Tripoli powder is composed of the flinty skeletons of diatomacise, of which large beds exist near Tripoli.
! The Turkey Stone on which we whet our razors is derived from the same region, and possibly from the same quarries as the coSy to which the Romans gave the name of the island from which they were accustomed to procure it.^ The Turquoise is a sort of misnomer. It came from Nishapore in Persia, but being imported by the Turkey merchants was supposed to be a Turkish stone. Chalcedony came from Chalcedon, and Ala- baster from Alabastrum in Egypt, as we are told by Pliny, who also informs us that the Topaz came from Topazos, an island in
^The word musket (Italian, moschetto) is from the same root. Diez, Etym. Worterb. p. 232.
* The notion of a leading or guiding-stone seems to have influenced the present form of the word. Cf. the loadstar, or leading-star.
® The Sanskrit name is nearly identical, which would indicate that copper first reached India from the West. See Pictet, Orig. Indo-Europ. part i. P- 173.
* Or the island may have derived its name from the stone. In favour of this view it may be urged that the Sanskrit po means to sharpen. Cf. the Latin acuo.
Words and Places
366
the Red Sea. Agates were first found in the bed of the Achates, a Sicilian river.^ In like manner the Gagates, a river of Lycia, gave its name to the black stone whicli the French call gagate, jayet, or jaeiy a word which we have abbreviated into Jet. The crystal called Spa came originally from the Belgian watering- place whose name has been transferred to so many mineral springs, and the word Chalybeate is itself indirectly derived from the name of the Chalubes, a tribe which inhabited the iromproducing district of Armenia. Seidlitz in Bohemia has given its name to the well-known effervescing draughts, and genuine Seltzer water comes from Nieder Selters, near Maintz. On Epsom Common may still be discovered the forsaken, but once fashionable well, from whose waters Epsom Salts were first procured. Gypsum, when written in its ancient form egipsum, tells us that it came from Egypt. Plaster of Paris was procured in great abundance from the catacombs of Paris, and Umber and Sienna, as the names import, are earths from Northern Italy. Syenite is the granite of Syene in Upper Egypt.^ Parian marble is from the Isle of Paros, and Caen and Bath stone have suffered no corruption. Two of the newly discovered metals take their names respectively from Yttrium in Sweden and Strontian in Argyleshire. Natron and Nitre are found in the Egyptian province of Nitria, where natron lakes still exist, though it is fairly open to dispute whether the salt gave its name to the province, or, as Jerome asserts, the pro- vince performed the like office for the salt. Ammonia abounds likewise in the soil of the Libyan desert, and in the writings of Synesius, Bishop of Pentapolis, we have an account of the pre- paration of the sal ammoniacus by the priests of Jupiter Ammon, and its transmission to Egypt in baskets made of the leaves of palms.
A large number, we might almost say the greater number, of the fabrics which we wear are called by names derived from the places at which they were originally made. Political and social revolutions, aided by the invention of the spinning jenny, of the power-loom, and of the steam-engine, have, it is true, transferred the great seats of manufacture from India, from the Levant, from Holland, from Northern Italy, and from East Anglia, to the neighbourhood of our English coalfields, but the fabrics
^ Bochart, vol. iii. p. 549.
* There are many terms of local origin used by geologists, such as D evonian, Siliurian, Wealden, Cambrian, etc.
Words Derived from Places 367
retain the ancient names which still testify of the places which saw the earliest developments of industrial energy. Our Cashmere Shawls^ are now made at Paisley; our Japanned ware comes from Birmingham, our China from Sta&rdshire, our Nankeen from Manchester, and we even export our Calico to Calicut, the very place from whence, three hundred years ago, it used to come.^
Names of this class resolve themselves, for the most part, into three divisions, which indicate in a characteristic manner the three chief centres of mediaeval industry.
The ingenuity and inventive skill of the Arabs gave the first impulse to the industrial progress of the West. Thus Sarcenet (low Latin, saracenicum) was a silken fabric obtained from the Saracens. Mouseline, the French form of the word Muslin, clearly refers us to Moussul,^ in the neighbourhood of the eastern capital of the Caliphs. In Bagdad, the street inhabited by the manufacturers of silken stuffs was called Atab, and the fabrics woven by them were called Atabi.'* From a corruption of this word we probably derive the words Taffety and Tabby The rich figured silk called Damask® and the famous Damascus swords were produced at the central seat of the Moslem dominion,^ and the Toledo blades remind us that the Arab conquerors carried their metallurgic skill with them to the West. From another Moslem kingdom came Cipresse, the black “ cobweb lawn ’’ behind which Olivia, in Twelfth Night, '' hides her heart,” and which the pedlar Autolycus, in the Winter^ s Tale, carries in his pack.
Gauze was made at Gaza, as is indicated by gaze, the French, and gasa, the Spanish form of the name ; ® and in the same way we are guided by the Italian haldacchino in assigning Baudekin, which we read of in old authors, to Baldacca or New Bagdad, one of the suburbs of Cairo. Baudekin originally meant a rich silken tissue embroidered with figures of birds, trees, and flowers, in gold and silver thread, but the word was subse-
^The word Shawl is itself the name of a valley and district in Affghanistan.
j * The French for calico is calicot. The fact that the t is dropped in I English indicates that we got the word through the French. Hackluyt I calls it “ Calicut doth.”
* Diez, Etymol. Worterbuch, p. 236; Pihan, Glossaire^ p. 210.
* Gayangos, Dynasties^ vol. i. pp. 358, 51; Yonge, Christian Names ^ vol. i. p. 122.
* A tabby cat has the wavy markings of watered silk.
® Scarlet, it may be noted, is an Arabic word.
’ Diez, Etymol. Worterbuch, p. 12 1.
* Pihan, Glossaire, p. 132; Diez, Etymol. Worterb. p. 641.
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368
quently used for any rich canopy, especially that over the altar, and pre-eminently the canopy in St. Peter’s under which stands the throne of the pope.^ Previous to the tenth century an important suburb of Cairo was Fostat,^ where flourished the manufacture of Fustian; fostagno, the Italian name of the fabric, indicates this more clearly than the English disguise.^
Mohair, or Moire, is a fabric ^ of the Moors or Arabs of Spain ; and the same skilful race, after the Spanish conquest, manu- factured Jean at Jaen; and at Cordova, cordovan or Cordwain,^ a kind of leather prized by the cordonniers or Cordwainers of the Middle Ages as highly as Morocco is by the leather-workers of the present day. Truly the most elaborate history of the civilisation ® of the Arabs would fail to give us any such vivid sense of their industry and ingenuity as is conveyed by the curious fact that the seats of their empire, whether in Europe, in Africa, or in Asia, have stamped their names indelibly on so many of the fabrics in our daily use.
As the energies of the Moslem races decayed, the Flemings took their place as the chief manufacturing people.' When Leeds and Manchester were country villages, and Liverpool a hamlet, Flanders was supplying all Europe with textile fabrics.
^ Fairholt, XJp the Nile, p. 59. Wedgwood {English Etym. p. 126) copies Diez, Etym. Worterb. p. 39, in assigning this manufacture to Bagdad on the Tigris. The ecclesiastical vestment called a Dalmatic was invented in Dalmatia.
* Gibbon, chap. li. vol. vi. p. 403.
® Diez, Etymol. Worterb. p. 157. Dimity is not, as has been asserted, the fabric from Damietta, but that woven with two threads {dLs and fiLros) just as twill and drill are respectively made with two and three threads, as the names imply.
* In Almeria there were at least 4000 looms. Gayangos, Dynasties, vol. i. p. 51. Merino is woven from the wool of the Merino sheep, a name which Southey has ingeniously derived from the emirs, or shepherd princes of Spain. The name of Moreen may be due to the same source, though it is more probably derived from the dark colour.
® Diez, Etymol. Worterb. p. in; Menage, Origines, pp. 229, 696.
® To the Arabs we also owe much of the early science of the West, as is shown by the words chemistry, alchemy, alembic, borax, elixir, alkali, alcoiiol, azul, lapis lazuli, algebra, almanac, azimuth, zenith, and nadir, which are all of Arabic origin. How feeble, too, would be our powers of calculation with- out the Arabic numerals, and the Arabic system of decimal notation. It is also a very suggestive fact that almost every Spanish word connected with irrigation — some dozen in all — is of Arabic origin. E.g. alberca, a tank; azequia, a canal; azena, a water-wheel; aljibe, a well. Gayangos, Dynasties, p. 487. Many nautical terms used in Spain are also Arabic. E.g. saetia, a boat ; the small three-masted vessel called a xabeque ; almadia, a raft ; arsenal ; and almirante, an admiral, which is a corruption of emir- al-bahr, commander at sea. Gayangos, Dynasties, vol. ii. appendix, p. xxxvi, ; Engelmann, p. 53.
’ The Flemish manufactures arose in the twelfth century. See Hallam, Middle Ages, voL iii. p. 375.
Words Derived from Places 369
The evidence of this fact is interwoven into the texture of our English speech. We have seen that many silken and cotton fabrics come from the Arabs; the Flemings excelled in the manufactures of flax and wool. From Cambrai we have Cambric, as is clear from the French form camhray, or toile de Cambray. Diaper, formerly written dHpre or d'YpreSy was made at Ypres, one of the chief seats of the cloth manufacture, as we learn from Chaucer, who says of his wife of Bath: —
Of cloth making she hadde swiche an haunt.
She passed hem of Ipres and of Gaunt.*'
Another colony of clothworkers was settled on the River Toucques in Normandy. From the name of this river a whole family of words has been derived.^ In German the general name for cloth is Tuck, and in old English tuck. We read in Hackluyt a description of ‘‘ the great Turke himselfe,” who had
upon his head a goodly white tucke, containing in length by estimation fifteene yards, which was of silke and linnen wouen together, resembling something of Calicut cloth.” ^ White trousers are made of Duck, our beds are covered with Ticking, and our children wear Tuckers at their meals. A Tucker was originally a narrow band of linen cloth worn by ladies round the throat. Hence any narrow strip of cloth fastened on the dress was called a Tuck or Tucker, and when this mode of ornamentation was imitated by a fold in the fabric, the fold or plait itself received the same name. A weaver used to be called a tucker, and Tucker is still a common surname among us. In Somerset and in Cornwall there are villages called Tucking Mill, and Tucker Street in Bristol ^ was that occupied by the weavers.^
From the Walloons we have Galloon,^ that is, Walloon lace, as well as the finer fabrics which take their name from Valen- ciennes and Mechlin. Gingham was originally made at Guin- gamp in French Flanders.® From the same region come Lisle thread, the rich tapestry called Arras, and Bmssels Carpets. In the marshes of Holland the fabrics were of a less costly type
^ See Knapp, English Roots, p. 46..
* Anthony lenkinson, “ The manner of the entring of Soliman the great Turke, with his armie into Aleppo in S3n:ia,** apud Hackluyt, Voyages, vol. ii. p. 1 13.
* Lucas, Secularia, p. loi.
* I have left this paragraph as it stood in the first edition, though I am now far from certain as to the correctness of the etymology suggested. The very early use of the word tuck suggests some independent Teutonic root.
® The Galleon was probably a W^oon vessel, one of the great Antwerp merchantmen.
* Hume, Geographical Terms, p. 7.
Words and Places
370
than among the wealthy Flemings. From this region we obtain the names of Delf ware, brown Holland, and homely Frieze,^ or cloth of Friesland.
Passing from the ingenious Arabs and the industrious Nether- landers, we find among the luxurious republics of Northern Italy a third series of names, as characteristic and as suggestive as those we have already considered. The fiddles of Cremona, the Pistols of Pistoja ^ in Tuscany, the bonnets of Leghorn, the Pads and Padding of Padua, the rich fabric called Paduasoy, and the scent called Bergamot, are fair specimens of the wares which would be articles of foremost necessity to the fine gentle- men and fair ladies who figure in the pages of Boccace; and it is easy to understand that Italian Irons might be suitably intro- duced by those Milliners and Mantuamakers ^ who derive their names from two cities where their services were so abundantly appreciated* On the other hand. Italics and Roman type still bear witness in every printing office that the newly dis- covered art was nowhere more eagerly welcomed, or carried to a higher perfection than in the country in which the revival of learning first began.
From the rest of Europe we may glean a few scattered names of the same class — though they mostly denote peculiarities of local costume rather than established seats of manufacture. Thus, we have the word Cravats from the nation of the Cravates, or Croats as they are now called.® There was a French regiment of light horse called “ le royal Cravate,” because it was attired in the Croat fashion, and the word cravat was introduced in
^ Compare, however, the Welsh ^m, the nap of cloth. To Frizzle, in French friser^ is to curl the hair in the Frisian fashion. See, however, Grimm, Gesch. Deut. Spr, p. 669; Diez, Etym. Worterb. p. 155. The architectural term Frieze is probably derived from Phrygia, certainly not from Friesland. The Attics of our houses may be traced to the Attic order of architecture, which displayed an upper tier of columns.
* The name of pistoyers was originally given to certain small daggers, and was afterwards transferred to the small concealed firearms. H. Stephanus, apud Diez, Etym. Worterhuch^ p. 267; Menage, Origines, p. 527. To this last we may add the pavois^ or shield of Pavia. Diez, Etym* Worterbuch, p. 256.
* Whewell, in Phil. Proc. vol. v. p. 136, thinks this is an erroneous derivation. He prefers manteau. The best bells for hawks were called Milans, because imported from Milan. See Drake, Shakspeare and his Times, vol. i. p. 268.
* The tureen is not from Turin, but is a terrine, or earthen vessel. Whe- well, in Philolog. Proc. vol. v. p. 136. We have also Polonies or Bologna sausages, and Saveloys from Savoy. Cf. Perigord pies, Bath buns, Ban- bury cakes, etc. The Magenta colour derives its name from a Lombard village, but the name commemorates the date, and not the locality of the discovery.
* Whewell, wi Proc. vol. v. p. 136; Zeiiss, Die Deutschen, p. 608.
Words Derived from Places 371
1636, when the neck-ties worn by these troops became the mode. Galligaskins were the large open hose worn by the Gallo-vascones, or Gascons of Southern France. Galloches^ or galloshoes/ are the wooden sabots worn by the French peasants, and the name has been transferred to the overshoes of caoutchouc which have been recently introduced. The French city from which we first obtained Shalloon is indicated by Chaucer in the Reves Tale. The Miller of Trumpington, we read,
“ Made a bedde
With shetes and chalons fair yspredde.**
Jerseys and Guernseys remind us how the mothers and wives of the fishermen in the Channel islands used to toil with their knitting-needles while their sons and husbands were labouring at sea. Tweeds were made at Hawick, Galashiels, Selkirk, and other towns on the Scottish border. The name was first suggested by the misreading of an invoice, and the appropriate- ness of this substitution of Tweeds for Twills gave rapid currency to the new name. Worsted * takes its name from Worstead, a village not far from Norwich, and informs us that the origin of our English textile manufactures dates from the settlement, in the time of Henry I., of a colony of Flemings, who made Norwich one of the chief manufacturing towns of England. The importance of the East Anglian woollen trade ^ is also shown by the fact that two contiguous Suffolk villages, Lindsey, and Kersey with its adjacent mere, have given their names to Lindsey Wolsey and Kerseymere. Baize is said ^ to be from Baiae near Naples, though this appears to be only an ingenious etymological guess. It is said also that Drugget, or droget, was first made at Drogheda in Ireland, and that Bonnets came from the Irish village of that name. From the name of Hibernia is derived the French word betne, a blanket,® and hence, per- haps, we have obtained the semi-naturalised word Bemouse.®
^ The etymology here suggested is doubtful. The word is very ancient, for the Roman caliga, from which Caligula derived his name, and the Lan- cashire clog, are from the same root. Compare the Old Spanish gallochas, Erse galoig, Brezone galochou. Spenser speaks of “ My galage grown fast to my heel.*’ Diefenbach, Celtica, i. p. 133; Diez, Etymol. Wbfter- buck, p. 162; Whitaker, History of Manchester, vol. ii. p. 258; Menage, Origines, p. 338.
* Blomefield, Hist, of Norfolk, vol. v. p. 1455; Gough’s Camden, vol. ii. p. I90; Hallam, Middle Ages, vol. iii. p. 378.
* See Good Words, March 1864; Hume, Geographical Terms, p. 6
* Hume, Geographical Terms, p. 7.
® Italian and Spanish hernia. Diefenbach, Celtica, i. p. 201 ; Diez, Etym. Worterbuch, p. 51.
* The general use of this word in the East suggests a doubt whether it may not be of Semitic origin.
Words and Places
372
Llanelly, I believe, was a great place for the Welsh flannel manufacture, though whether the word Flannel is derived from the name Llanelly is doubtful.^ The etymology at all events seems quite as probable as that which Diez proposes, from velamen,^ The word Silk may be traced to the sericce vestes, the garments of the Seres or Chinese, who, ever since the time of Pliny, have been the chief producers of this material.
It must suffice briefly to enumerate a few inventions whose names betray a local origin.
The towns of Sedan in France, and Bath in England, have given us Sedans and Bath Chairs. From Kottsee, a town in Hungary, comes the Hungarian word Kotczy, and the German Kutsche^ of which the English word Coach ^ is a corruption.^
The first Berline was constructed for an ambassadorial journey from Berlin to Paris. The Landau is said to derive its name from the town of Landau in the Palatinate.® It has been supposed that Hackney coaches were first used at the London suburb of Hackney;^ the true etymology, however, seems to be the French word hacquenee, an ambling nag of which the English hack is an abbreviation.®
Chevaux de Frise, the wooden horses of Friesland, are due to Dutch ingenuity. They were first drawn up at the siege of
1 Notes and Queries, second series, vol. ix. p. 177.
^ Diez, Etymol. Worterhuch, p. 147.
^ John Cuspinianus, physician to Maximilian I., says that the Hungarians rode in carriages, called in their native tongue kottschi. Ungriches Mag. vol. i. p. 20, vol. ii. p. 460. See two most exhaustive treatises on this word, by M. Cornides, in the Ungriches Magazin, vol. i. pp. 15-21; vol. ii. pp. 412-465. See also Beckmann, Hist, of Inventions, vol. i. p. 77.
* Coaches were_introduced into England from Hungary, by the Earl of Arundel, in 1580.' Ung. Mag. vol. ii. p. 424; Smith, Antiquarian Ramble, vol. i. p. 367.
® The Kutsche was a carriage in which the traveller might sleep, as appears from a passage of Avila, quoted by Diez, p. 105. Charles V. he says, “ se puso a dormir en un carro cubierto, al qual en Hungria llaman coche, el nombre y la invencion es de aquella tierra.” Hence it has been proposed to connect the English word Couch and the French verb Coucher with the same root, but the influence is probably only of a reflex nature, the ultimate source of these two words being to be sought in the Latin collocare.
®Whewell, in Philolog. Proc. vol. v. p. 136; Hume, Geogr. Terms, p. 17. It seems probable, however, that it may have been named after Marshal Landau, like the Stanhope, Tilbury, and Brougham. There is a coach- maker, in Longacre, called Rumball, and a writer in Notes and Queries (second series, vol. ix. p. 177) suggests that the Rumble was invented by him.
^ Taylor, Antiquitates Curios ce, p. 115.
* In the seventeenth century we have mention of the coche d haquenee. See Diez, Etym. Worterhuch, p. 192; Diefenbach, Vergleich. Worterbuch, vol. i. p. 30; Menage, Origines, p. 375,
Words Derived from Places 373
Groningen, in 1658, to oppose the Spanish cavalry. A nearly contemporaneous invention is that of the Bayonet, which was first used at the storming of Bayonne in 1665.^ The Burgonet, probably, takes its name from Burgundy, and the Carabine from Calabria, as is indicated by the obsolete Italian form of the word — calabrino. The word Calibre, though apparently cognate, is really from an Arabic source. ^ The Pole-Axe was the national weapon of the Poles. The Lochaber axe has disappeared along with Highland warfare, and that other national weapon, the Shillelah,® will, we may hope, soon be con- fined also to the museums of the antiquary. Improved weapons, according to the modem rule of nomenclature, are named after the inventor, as in the case of Congreve rockets, Minie and Whitworth rifles, and Armstrong, Dahlgren, and Parrot guns. An exception, however, exists in the case of long Enfields and short Enfields, which are made in the Government factory at Enfield, just as the obsolete ordnance called Carronades were cast at the celebrated Carron Foundry on the Clyde.
The word parchment is derived from the Latin charta per- gamena, or pergamentumj which was used for the multiplication of manuscripts for the great library at Pergamus. From the Campagna of Rome we have the Italian campana a bell,^ and the naturalised English word Campanile, a bell tower. The first Artesian well was sunk through the chalk basin of the province of Artois. Varnish® is said to be from the city of Berenice on the Red Sea. The Bougie, that constant source of altercation at Continental hotels, takes its name from Bougiah, a town in Algeria which exports large quantities of beeswax.® Venetian blinds, prussic acid and prussian blue, Dresden, Sevres, Worcester, Chelsea, and other names of the class present no etymological difficulties. Majolica is Majorca ware, and Mr. Marsh thinks that the glass vessel called a Demijohn may
^ Diez, Etym. Worterhuch, p. 561. Grenades have no connection with the famous siege of Granada, but are so called from their resemblance to the granate or pomegranate. The tallest and strongest men in the regiment, who were chosen to throw them, were called grenadiers.
* Englemann, Glossaire, p. 76.
* The oak saplings which grow in a certain wood in the parish of Shil- lelah, Coimty Wicklow, are believed to be of a peculiarly tough and knotty quality.
* See Ducange, s. v. ; Diez, Etym. Worterh. p. 84.
* Cf. the Italian vernice^ and the Spanish herniz,
•Diez, Etym. Wort. p. 76; Menage, Origines, p. 130; Pihan, Glossaire, p. 63.
Words and Places
374
take its name from Damaghan, a town in Khorassan formerly famous for its glass works.^
Many names of this description are personal rather than local. Thus the Doiley is supposed to have been introduced by a trades- man in the Strand/ one Doyley, whose name may still be seen cut in the stone over the office of the Field newspaper; and the etymology of the word Mackintosh is not likely to be forgotten while the shop at Charing Cross continues to bear the name of the inventor. In like manner Jacket, in French jaquCj was so called from Jaque of Beauvais/ and Gobelin tapestry from brothers Gobelin, dyers at Paris, whose house, called the Hotel des Gobelins, was bought by Louis XV. for the manufacture of the celebrated fabric.^ The invention of Spencers and Sandwiches by two noblemen of the last century is com- memorated in a contemporaneous epigram, which may perhaps bear transcription : —
Two noble earls, whom, if I quote.
Some folks might call me sinner.
The one invented half a coat.
The other, half a dinner.
The plan was good, as some will say.
And fitted to console one.
Because, in this poor starving day.
Few can afford a whole one.” *
The invention of Earl Spencer may be classed with the Wellingtons and Bluchers which came into fashion at the close , of the European war; and that of the Earl of Sandwich with Maintenon cutlets. It has been suggested ® that we owe the Brawn on our breakfast tables to a German cook named Braun who lived in Queen Street. The word, however, is doubtless of much greater antiquity, the true etymology being to be sought in the old French braion, a roll of flesh.
From two Greek philosophers w^e derive the terms Platonic love, and Epicure. The Guillotine takes its name from Dr.
^ Marsh, Lect, on Eng. Language, p. 145; English edition, p. loi. The dame J eanne, however, seems to have been a bottle made near Arras. See PJiilolog. Trans, vol. i. pp. 62-72.
^ Notes and Queries, second series, vol. ii. p. 476.
® Diez, Etym. Worterb. p. 172; compare Yonge, Christian Names, vol. i. p. no; Menage, Origines, p. 353.
^ See Notes and Queries, November 10, i860; Beckmann, Hist, of In- ventions, vol. i. p. 403.
® Booth, Epigrams, p. 83. The invention of Lord Sandwich is said to have enabled him to remain at the gaming-table for twenty- four consecutive hours without having to retire for a regular meal. Taylor, Antiq. Curios te,
p. 17.
® Notes and Queries, second series, vol. ii. pp. 196, 235.
Words Derived from Places 375
Guillotin, who introduced it.^ The Derrick, a machine for raising sunken ships, by means of ropes attached to a sort of gallows, perpetuates the memory of a hangman of the Eliza- bethan period.^ Tram roads and Macadamisation we owe to Outram and Macadam. A strict disciplinarian in the army of Louis XIV. has given us the word Martinet, and from a French architect we obtain the Mansarde roof.^ Mr. Pinchbeck was one of the cheap goldsmiths of the last century, and has left numerous disciples in our own.* An ingenious astronomical toy bears the name of the Earl of Orrery.® Galvani, Volta, Daguerre, and Talbot have stamped their names upon two of the greatest discoveries of modem times. The value of Mesmerism is more open to question.® The name of Silhouette was bestowed in the time of Louis XV. on the meagre shadow portraits which were then in vogue, and it contains a sarcastic allusion to the niggardly finance of M. de Silhouette, an un- popular minister of the French monarch.^
Paschino was a cobbler at Rome ; he was a noted character, and a man of a very marked physiognomy. The statue of an ancient gladiator having been exhumed, and erected in front of the Orsini palace, the Roman wits detected a resemblance to the notorious cobbler, and gave the statue his name. It afterwards became the practice to post lampoons on the pedestal of the statue, whence effusions of this nature have come to be called Pasquinades.® Pamphylla, a Greek lady, who com- piled a history of the world in thirty-five little books, has given her name to the Pamphlet.® The name of Punch, or, to give him his unabbreviated Italian title, Pulcinello, has been derived from the name of the person who is said to have first performed
^ Dr. Guillotin only introduced the bill in the Convention ; a Dr. Louis was the real inventor of the machine, which was at first called the Louisette. See Times, June ii, 1864.
* Hotten, Slang Diet. p. 119.
* V^hewell, in Philolog. Proc. vol. v. p. 136.
* Hotten, Slang Diet. p. 201.
* The Orrery was invented by a Mr. Rowley, who gave it the name of his patron.
* This method of nomenclature has naturally prevailed among religious sects. He have Arians, Arminians, Calvinists, Wesleyans, Simeonites, and Puseyites.
^ Sismondi, Hist, de Frangais, vol. xxix. pp. 94, 95, apud Diez, Etym, Worterb. p. 725. So Mr. Joseph Hume’s unpopular fourpenny pieces were called Joeys by the cabmen; and Sir Robert Peel’s substitute for the London watchmen are still called Bobbys and Peelers. Hotten, Slang Diet. pp. 163, 198.
* Yonge, Christian Names, vol. i. p. 437.
* Athenesum, November ii, 1863, p. 715.
Words and Places
376
the world-known drama, one Puccio d’Aniello, a witty peasant of Acerza in the Roman Campagna.^ It has also been supposed, with some reason, that Punch and Judy and the dog Toby are relics of an ancient mystery play, the actors in which were Pontius Pilate, Judas, and Tobias’ dog. For the word Harle- quin, in Italian Arlechino^ a local origin has, however, been suggested; the name being, perhaps, derived from the Arle- camps, or Champ d’ Arles, where the performance was first exhibited.^ The word Charlatan we may trace through the Italian forms ciarlatano and cerretano to the city of Cerreto.^ Vaudeville is from Vau-de-Ville in Normandy, where the entertainment was introduced by Olivier Basselin, at the end of the fourteenth century.**
Many analogous derivations which we find in classical authors are obviously fanciful or mythical. Thus we read that the art of grinding was discovered at Alesise (dAeo-at, to grind), by Myles a millstone).^ In like manner we are told that the
tinder-box was invented by Pyrodes, and the spindle by Closter ; and that the oar was first used at two Boeotian towns — Copae (handle), and Plataeae (blade).® This, it need not be said, is as absurd as if a modem Pliny were to assure us that needles were first manufactured by a Mr. Steel at the western extremity of the Isle of Wight, or that the game of draughts was originally played in Ayrshire.
The etymology of the names of coins is often curious. The Guinea was first coined in 1663 from gold brought from the Guinea coast. It was stmck as a twenty-shilling piece, but from the fineness of the metal the new coins were so highly prized that they commanded an agio of a shilling. The Byzant, a large gold coin of the value of £15 sterling, was struck at Byzan- tium. The Dollar was originally the same as the German Thaler, which took its name from the silverworks in the Thai or valley of Joachim in Bohemia. Its currency throughout! the New World bears witness to the extension of the Spanish-. Austrian empire in the reign of Charles V. The Florin was ' struck at Florence and bore the Florentine device of the lily-'
^ Diez, Etymolog. Worterbuch, p. 425.
^ Ibid. p. 26. See, however. Max Muller, in Reports of Brit. Assoc, for 1847, p. 322.
, ^ Diez, Etymol. Wbrterb. p. 100; Menage, Origines, p. 202.
^ Du Bois, p. 13, apud Diez, Etymol. Wbrterb. p. 742.
® Kenrick, PrimcBval History , p. 82 ; Pott, in Kuhn’s Zeitschrift fur Vergleich. Spr. vol. ix. p. 181.
* kenrick, Phoenicia, p. 217.
Words Derived from Places 377
flower^ which has been reproduced on the New English coins of the same name. The Mark was a Venetian coin, stamped with the winged lion of St. Mark, and since Venice was the banker to half the world, it became the ordinary money of account.^ Cufic coins, silver pieces with Arabic characters, were coined at Cufa. The Jane which is mentioned by Chaucer and Spenser was a small coin of Genoa (Janua). The Franc is the nummus francicus — ^the coin of the Franks or French, and the Dutch Guilder may possibly take its name from Gelder- land.^
Money and Mint remind us that the coinage of the Romans was struck at the temple of Juno Moneta, the goddess of counsel {moneo). The word Sterling is a contraction of esterling — the pound or penny sterling being a certain weight of bullion accord- ing to the standard of the Esterlings or eastern merchants from the Hanse towns on the Baltic.^ The convenience of the local standard of Troyes has given us Troy weight; and the Steel- yard is not, as is commonly supposed, a balance made with a steel arm, but is the machine for weighing which was used in the Steelyard, the London factory of the Hanse towns.® That the name originated in England is proved by the fact that it is confined to this country; the French equivalent being Romaine, and the German ruthe.
Not the least interesting, and by far the most instructive, of the words that have been derived from geographical names are those which have been furnished by the names of nations, and which will mostly be found to have a sort of moral significance, ethnical terms having become ethical.
^ Manage, Origines, p. 793 ; Notes and Queries , second series, vol. v. p. 258.
* Yonge, Christian Names ^ vol. i. p. 291.
* A Ducat is the coin issued by a duke, just as a Sovereign is that issued by a king. A Tester bore the image of the king’s head {teste, or Ute), and the Penny is, possibly, in like manner, the diminutive of the Celtic pen, a head. The modem Welsh word cetniog, a penny, is analogously from cenn, a head. A Shilling or skilling bore the device of a shield or schild, and a Scudo had a scutum. An Eagle, an Angel, and a Kreutzer bear respectively the American eagle, an angel, and a cross. English Groats, like the German Groschen, were the great coins, having been four times the size of the penny. Twenty shillings used to weigh a Pound {pondus). So the Italian lira and French livre were of the weight of a libra. A Farthing is the fourthing, or fourth part of a penny, just as the square furlong is the foiurthling of an acre, and as the Ridings of York- shire were the thridings or third parts of the county.
* Robertson, Scotland under her Early Kings, vol. ii. p. 350 ; Manage, Origines, pp. 616-618; Hume, Geogr. Terms, p. 19; Skinner, Etymolo- gicon, s. V.
* See Pauli, Pictures of Old England, pp. 176-203.
Words and Places
378
Thus, when we remember how the Vandals and the Goths, two rude northern hordes, swept across Europe, blotting out for a time the results of centuries of Roman civilisation, and destroying for ever many of the fairest creations of the Grecian chisel, we are able to understand how it has come about that the wanton or ignorant destruction of works of art should go by the name of Vandalism, and also how the first clumsy efforts of the Goths to imitate, or adapt to their own purposes the Roman edifices, should be called Gothic.^ It is interesting to note the stages by which this word has ascended from being a word of utter contempt to one of highest honour. Yet we may, at the same time, regret that the same word — Gothic — should have been misapplied to designate that most perfect system of Christian architecture which the northern nations, after centuries of honest and painsful labour, succeeded in working out slowly for themselves, and in the elaboration of which the nations of pure Gothic blood took comparatively little share.
The fierce and intolerant Arianism of the Visigothic conquerors of Spain ^ has given us another word. The word Visigoth has become Bigot, and thus on the imperishable tablets of language the Catholics have handed down to perpetual infamy the name and nation of their persecutors.®
From the name of the same nation — ^the Goths of Spain — • are derived, curiously enough, two names, one implying extreme honour, the other extreme contempt. The Spanish noble, who boasts that the sangre azul of the Goths runs in his veins with
' Cf. Grimm, Gesch. d. Deut. Spr. p, 475 ; Milman, Hist, of Latin Christianity f vol. vi. p. 405.
* See Brace, Races of Old Worlds p. 283.
*The doubtful point in this etymology seems to be set at rest by a passage in the romance of Gerard of Roussillon, in which Bigot is used as an ethnic name: —
** Bigot, e Provenzal, e Rouergues,
E Bascle, e Gasco, e Bordales.’*
See Michel, Hist, des Races Maudites, vol. i. p. 539. This seems, there- fore, to be a more probable etymology than any of those which are ordinarily given. The explanation of Menage, Origines, p. 116, from Bi got, the Norman oath, is out of the question. That proposed byAVachter, and supported by Trench, Study of Words, p. 80; and by Wedgwood, Philological Trans, for 1855, pp. 113-116, from the or Franciscans,
involves serious phonetic difficulties. That from bigotte, a moustache, is almost a iiarepov irpdrepov, for bigotte, a moustache, is itself probably from Visigoth. Compare the Spanish phrase hombre de bigote, a man of fixed purpose, and the French un vieux moustache. Cf. Ford, Gatherings from Spain, p. 256. Bigot appears as a personal name in the case of Hugh Bigod, Earl of Norfolk.
Words Derived from Places 379
no admixture, calls himself an Hidalgo, that is, a son of the Goth, as his proudest title.^ Of Gothic blood scarcely less pure than that of the Spanish Hidalgos, are the Cagots of Southern France, a race of outcast pariahs, who in every village live apart, executing every vile or disgraceful kind of toil, and with whom the poorest peasant refuses to associate. These Cagots are the descendants of those Spanish Goths, who, on the invasion of the Moors, fled to Aquitaine, where they were protected by Charles Martel. But the reproach of Arianism clung to them, and religious bigotry branded them with the name of ca Gots,^ or “ Gothic Dogs,” a name which still clings to them, and keeps them apart from their fellow-men. In the Pyrenees these Arian refugees were anciently called Christaas, and in French Chretiens, or Christians, probably to distinguish them from Jewish or Moorish fugitives. Confinement to narrow valleys, and their enforced intermarriages, often resulted in the idiotcy of the children, and the name of the outcasts of the Pyrenees has been transferred to the poor idiotic wretches who, under the name Cretins, are painfully familiar to Swiss tourists.^ Thfe word goitre is not, as has been thought, derived from the name of these Gothic refugees, but is a corruption of the Latin guttur, which we find in Juvenal: — Quis tumidum guttur miratur in Alpibus.” *
The Marrons of Auvergne are a race of pariahs, descended from the Mauriens or Moorish conquerors of the Maurienne. Hence the French word marrane, a renegade or traitor, and the Spanish adjective marrano, accursed, and the substantive marrano, a hog.®
Again, when we remember how the soldier-like fidelity and the self-reliant courage ® of the Franks enabled them with ease
^ The old etymology hijo d* algo, son of something, has been universally given up in favour of hi d* al Go, son of the Goth. See a paper On Oc and Oyl, by J. E. Biester, in the Berlin Transactions for 1812-13, trans- lated by Bishop Thirlwall for the Philological Museum^ vol. ii. p. 337.
* From the Provencal, canis, or the Bearnais caas^ and Got, Goth. This etymology, first proposed by De Marca, and stamped with the approval of Scaliger, is now generally adopted. Compare the French cagoterie, bigotry. See Michel, Histoire des Races Maudites, vol. i. pp. 284, 294, 355; and a paper by the same author in vol. i. of Le Moyen Age et la Renaissance; Menage, Origines, pp. 165-171; Diez, Etymol. Worterbuch,
p. 584.
* See Michel, Histoire des Races Maudites, vol. i. pp. 50. 162. 180. etc.
* Juvenal, Sai. xiii. 1. 162.
‘ See p. 95, supra ; Michel, Histoire des Races Maudites, vol. ii. pp. 45, 96; Menage, Origtnes, p. 451.
* So the haughty character of the Norman conquerors, well illustrated by the story of Rollo’s homaging, explains how the French norois (nor- mand) came to mean proud. Diez, Gram, der Rom, Spr, vol. i. p. 47.
Words and Places
380
to subjugate the civilised but effeminate inhabitants of Northern Gaul, we can understand how the name of a rude German tribe has come to denote the Frank, bold, open, manly character of a soldier and a freeman, and the word Franchise to denote the possession of the full civil rights of the conquering race.^
In the south-east of Gaul the Roman element of the popula- tion had ever been more considerable than elsewhere, and in this region the influence of the northern conquerors was com- paratively transient. Hence the langue d^oc, or language of Provence, the Roman Provincia, was called the Romance, retaining as it did a much greater resemblance to the language of the Romans than the langue doyl^ the tongue of that part of Gaul which had been conquered and settled by the Franks. Here, in the region of the Languedoc, civilisation was first re-established; here was the first home of chivalry; here the troubadour learned to beguile the leisure of knights and ladies with wild tales of adventure and enchantment — Romances, Romantic narratives — ^so called because sung in the Romance tongue of the Roman province.^
In the south-west of Gaul, on the other hand, the Celtic or Celtiberic element of the original population was little influenced either by Roman colonisation, or by Frankish or Gothic con- quest. The Gascons afforded an exhibition of the peculiar characteristics of the Celtic stock — they were susceptible, enthusiastic, fickle, vain, and ostentatious.^ The random and boastful way of talking in which these Gascons were prone to indulge, has, from them, received the name Gasconade.^
agree with Leo, Vorlesungen, vol. i. p. 255, that the arguments of Jacob Grimm, Geschichie d. Deut Sprach. p. 512, on the name of the Franks exhibit virtually a vcrepov Trpdrepov. Cf. Diez, Etym. Worterbuch, p. 153; Diefenbach, Vergleich, Worterbuch^ vol. i. p. 403; Diez, Gram, der Rom. Spr. vol. i. p. 47.
* Diez, Etym. Worterbuch, p. 295 ; Menage, Origines, pp. 565-572 ; Sheppard, Fall of Rome, p. 133.
® See p. 179,
* The Spaniards call the Basque language the Bascongada. Rodomon- tade, a word of somewhat similar meaning, is derived from Rodomonte, a braggart who figures in Ariosto’s poem of Orlando Furioso. The immortal romance of Cervantes has given us the word Quixotic. Hectoring comes from “ Sir Hector ” of Troy. Gibberish comes from Geber, an obscure eastern writer on alchemy, and Fudge, perhaps, from a certain inventive Captain Fudge, who flourished in the reign of Charles II. Burlesque, in Italian burlesco or Berniesco, is derived from Francesco Bernia, who invented this species of composition. Alexandrines and Leonines probably from a French poet, Alexandre Paris, and the monk Leo, of Marseilles. We speak of the Spenserian stanza, and a Ciceronian style. The summary proceedings of Judge Lynch have given our American cousins a verb of which they stood in need. The words Bogus (Borghese), and Blenkerism
Words Derived from Places 381
The Langobardes, or Lombards, who settled in Northern Italy, appear to have been distinguished by national charac- teristics very different from those of Frank, Gascon, Goth, Visigoth, or Vandal. They seem to have been actuated by the spirit of commercial rather than of chivalrous adventure ; and at an early period we find them competing with the Jews as the capitalists and pawnbrokers ^ of the Middle Ages. As we have already seen,^ Lombard Street — still the street of bankers — marks the site of the Lombard colony in London;^ and the Lombards have left their name not only in our streets but in our language, as a curious witness to the national characteristics which distinguished them from the other tribes which overran the Roman Empire. A lumber-room is the Lombard room,^ the room where the Lombard pawnbrokers stored their un- redeemed pledges. Hence, after a time, furniture stowed away in an unused chamber came to be called Lumber; and since such furniture is often heavy, clumsy, and out of date, we call a clumsy man a lumbering fellow; and our American cousins have given heavy timber the name of lumber, and call the man who fells it a Lumberer — a curious instance of the complicated process of word manufacture — by which the name of a barbarous German tribe has been transferred to American backwoods- men.
When the Bulgarians and Huns, under Attila, overran the Roman Empire, the terror which they inspired was due not only to their savage ferocity, but in part to the hideousness of the Kalmuck physiognomy, with its high cheek bones, and grinning boar-tushed visage. Their name became the synonym for an inhuman monster. Hence the German Hiine, a giant,^ the
hand down to fame the names of two other transatlantic worthies, while Burking is the peculiar glory of this island. See Bowditch, Suffolk Surnames^ pp. 256-258.
^ The Sicilian word lumhardu^ an innkeeper, shows that the Lombards also exercised this calling. Diez, Etym. Worterhuch, p. 676. There is an old French adjective, lombart, usurious. Thom, de Cant. Ed. Bekker, p. 41; apud Diez, Etym. Worterhuch, p. 676.
^ See p. 272, supra.
® The Caorsini, i.e. the men of Cahors (Dept. Lot), were in mediceval times the rivals of the Lombards in the money-markets of Europe. Their name, however, has not been perpetuated to the same extent as that of the Lombards, having left only the Proven9al word chaorcin, a usurer. Flallam, Middle Ages, vol. iii. p. 405; Ducange, s. v.
* French lombard, a pawnshop. See the passages cited by Trench, Glossary, p. 127.
® The Norse word for a giant is Jotunn, i.e. Jute or Goth. Schafarik, Slaw. Alt. vol. i. pp. 50, 52.
382 Words and Places
French Bulgar, or Bougre^ the Russian Obri, and the Englisli Ogre.^
When the Asi approached Scandinavia they found the shores peopled by wandering Finns, whom tradition represents as malignant imps and deformed demons, lurking among rocks and in the forest gloom. Hence, it has been thought, have arisen the words Fiend and Fiendish, and the German Feind, an enemy
The relations of the Sclavonic races of Eastern Europe to their western neighbours is also indicated by a curious piece of historical etymology. The martial superiority of the Teutonic races enabled them, as we have seen, gradually to advance their frontier toward the east, and in so doing, to keep their slave markets supplied with captives taken from the Sclavonic tribes.^ Hence, in all the languages of Western Europe, the once glorious name of Sclave has come to express the most degraded con- dition of man.^ What centuries of violence and warfare does the history of this word disclose! and the contempt and hatred of race which the use of the word implies is strongly shown by the fact that even so late as the last century no person of Sclavonic blood was admissible into any German guild of artisans or merchants.®
W^e have, however, an earlier and an analogous case of word- formation, which has not attracted the same attention as the word slave. That Sclavonic people which was in the closest geographical proximity to Italy called themselves Serbs or
^ The Bulgarians were given to manichaeism, hence the French word bougerie^ heresy. Cf. Ducange, s. v. Bulgarus; Diez, Etym. Worterbuch, p. 576; Menage, Origines, p. 131.
2 The Ogres or Ugrians, to which stock the Bulgarians and Magyars belong, were the tribes north of the Ural. The ethnic name of the Ugrians seems to have become Ogres, from a fancied connection with Orcus, analo- gous to that of the Tatars with Tartarus, which has been already referred
{p. 351, supra). Compare Prichard, Researches, vol. iii. pp. 273, 324; Grimm, Deut. Myth. p. 454; Diez, Etym. Worterbuch, p. 244; Wilson, Pre-historic Man, vol. ii. p. 302.
* Palgrave, English Commonwealth, vol. i. p. 103.
See p. 48, supra.
® The word sclave, in the sense of servus, appears first in Lombardy, in the ninth century. The earliest known occurrence of the word in Germany is in the year 996: — “ Ecclesiae servos vel sclavos.” Schafarik, Sluw. Alterth. vol. li. p. 27; Monumenta boica, 28, i, p. 267, quoted by Mone, Celtische Forschungen, p. 251.
•See Schafarik, Slaw. Alterth. vol. ii. p. 42; Arndt, Europ. Sprach, p. 291; Donaldson, New Cratylus, p. 385; Varronianus, p. 66; Gibbon, chap. Iv. vol. vii. p. 76; Palgrave, Normandy and England, vol. i. p. 379; Sheppard, Fall of Rome, p. 143; Zeuss, Die Deutschen, p. 646; Pictet, Grig. Indo-Eur. part ii. p. 204.
Words Derived from Places 383
Semans,^ and it seems probable that the Latin word servusy and our own derivative Serf, originated from causes similar to those which have given us the word slave. The probability of this being the true etymology of servus is much increased by the numerous parallel cases of ethnic terms being perverted to be the designation of servile races. The manner in which the words Davus, Geta, and Syrus are applied to slaves in the Graeco- Latin comedies, exhibits in a half-completed state the same linguistic process which has given us the words slave and serf, and at the same time indicates that the Grecian slave markets must have been largely supplied by Dacians, Goths, and Syrians.^ Aristophanes uses the word a-KvOaiva in the sense of a female house-servant.^ The word SouAo? is probably derived from the AoAo?t€s, a subject race of Thessaly; and the Helots were the aboriginal inhabitants of the Peloponnesus, who were reduced to slavery at the time of the Dorian conquest. The rich treasure- house of language has preserved a curious memorial of the fact that the Saxon conquest of England was accompanied by a reduction to servitude of the indigenous race. Till within the last three centuries the word Villain retained the meaning of a peasant.'* In Domesday the villani are the praedial serfs. The root of the word is, not improbably, the Anglo-Saxon wealh, a foreigner, or Welshman,^ an etymology which, if correct, proves that servitude must have been the ordinary condition of the Celts under Saxon rule.®
We have a somewhat analogous case in British India. Porters and palanquin-bearers go by the name of Coolies, a name which has been extended to include the Indian labourers who have replaced the negro slaves in the sugar plantations of Tropical America. The word Coolie is a corruption of the name of a
^ The root s-f& denotes “ kinsmanship.” The modern usage of the word - servility is an illustration of the habits engendered by a state of slavery.
* Pott, in Kuhn's Zeitschrift^ vol. ix. p. 216. We have also the less frequent slave-names Ad/cwv, in Theocritus (v. 5), Mecrcnji'twy, in Plautus, and QerraXoiK^TTjs, in Athenaeus (vi. 264).
® So St. Paul uses as an equivalent of barbarian. Colossians,
chap. hi. v. ii.
* The change to the present meaning of the word is analogous to that which has transformed the significations of boor (bauer, or peasant), knave (boy), and imp (child).
* See pp. 61, 62, supra. Schafarik, Slaw. Alterth. vol. i. p. 50. The word vile may be from the same root, wealh. Ibid. vol. i. p. 377. Much may doubtless be said in favour of the old derivation of these words from the Latin villa and vilis. But at all events we may believe that the obvious Teutonic analogy exercised a reflex influence on the usage of the words.
* Cf. the name of the Teilfali of Poitou.
Words and Places
384
Turanian hill-tribe, the Coles or Kolas, who occupy the lowest place in the Indian labour-market.^
The word Kap is used in Greek to denote a mercenary soldier, the Carians having habitually hired themselves out to fight the battles of their neighbours. In like manner the Shawi, a tribe of desert nomads, were enlisted by the French after their Algerian conquest, and the name has been corrupted into Zouave, while the ranks are filled by the gamins of the streets of Paris.2 The word Sikh may possibly be destined to undergo a similar change of meaning.
The luxurious sensuality which prevailed at Sybaris has attached a disgraceful signification to the word Sybarite, and the moral corruption which poisoned the mercantile and pleasure-loving city of Corinth caused the word Koptv9td^€cr6at to become a synonym for kTaipdv^ just as the more healthy pleasures of the Sicelian peasant made the word crtKekL^ecv equivalent to op^dcrdai,^ The dry upland sheep pastures of the Peloponnesus and the rich com-flats of Thebes have given us the two adjectives Arcadian and Boeotian. An heroic man we call a Trojan, a morose man a Turk, a benevolent man a good Samaritan, and “ catching a Tatar ” is a process more familiar than agreeable. The terse, pregnant way in which the Spartans expressed themselves still causes us to talk of Laconic speech,^ the pithy wit of the Athenians has left us the phrase Attic salt, and the bitter laughter of the Sardinians is commemorated in the expression, “ a Sardonic smile.”
From Thrax, a Thracian, the Romans, by the change of a single letter, derived the word threx, a gladiator, a fact which indicates the region from which the arena was supplied with hardy mountain combatants. The usage of the words Kprjs, Ua<f>Xdyo)Vy and Mvo-o? would prove equally suggestive.®
The word Brigand, as we have seen,^ is not improbably derived from the name of the Brigantes, or perhaps from Briga, a border town near Nice. The word brigant first appears in the sense of a light-armed soldier, and then it takes the meaning of
^ Brace, Races of the Old World, p. 103.
^ Ibid. p. 172.
® See Becker, Charicles, p. 246.
^ Muller, Dorians, vol. ii. p. 339.
® The Italian word ladino, easy, shows that Latin was the easiest language for an Italian to acquire. Compare the German deutlich, plain, and our own phrase, “ It is Greek to me.”
* See Donaldson, Varronianus, p. 449; Muller, Dorians, vol. ii. p. 300; Schafarik, Slaw. Alterth. vol. i. p. 52.
’ See p. 193, supra.
Words Derived from Places 385
a robber. Next we find hrigante, a pirate; and the pirate's ship is called a Brigantine, of which the word Brig is a contraction.^
‘‘ Jeddart justice," which denotes the practice of hanging the criminal first and trying him afterwards, is a reminiscence of the wild border life of which the town of Jedburgh was the centre.
From Tarifa the Moorish cruisers sallied forth to plunder the vessels passing through the Straits of Gibraltar, but discovering the impolicy of killing the goose that laid the golden egg, they seem to have, levied their blackmail on a fixed scale of payment, which, from the name of the place where it was exacted, came to be called a Tariff.^
The word Cannibal is probably a corruption of the name of the Caribs or Caribals, a savage West Indian people, among whom the practice of cannibalism was supposed to prevail.^ The horrible custom of scalping fallen enemies was usual among the Scythian tribes, and Herodotus gives us a picture of the string of bloody trophies hanging to the warrior's rein. Hence arose the word dTroo-KvOt^etv, to scalp, which we find in Euri- pides. The word Assassin probably comes from the name of a tribe of Syrian fanatics who, like the Thugs of India, considered assassination in the light of a religious duty.'*
During the last century false political rumours were often propagated from Hamburg, then the chief port of communica- tion with Germany. “ A piece of Hamburg news " seems to have become a proverbial expression for a canard, and it is easy to see how this phrase has been pared down into the modem slang term Humbug.^ The expressive American term Buncum
^ See Diez, Etymolog. Worterbuch, p. 69; Menage, Origines^ p. 149.
* See, however, Freytag, s. v. ; Diez, Etymol. Worterbuch, p. 342 ; and .Pihan, Glossaire, p. 271, who prefer a derivation from the Arabic 'ta'rif, a declaration. The word to sally is no doubt from salire, though there is a temptation to deduce it from Sallee, another chief station of the Moorish pirates. Corsair is certainly not from Corsica; though, possibly, riff raff may be derived from the Riff pirates.
® Trench, Study of Words , p. 137.
♦ Diefenbach {Celtica, i. p. 24) derives the name from the Kurdish word asen or hassifty iron. The name of the tribe, perhaps, comes from the hashish, an intoxicating preparation of hemp with which the members of the sect worked themselves up to the requisite degree of recklessness. Manage, Origines, p. 64; Pihan, Glossaire, pp. 43, 147; De Sacy, in Memoires de V Institute for 1818, apud Diez, Etym. Worterbuch, p. 29.
® See Outlines of Humbug, a brochure ascribed to the late Archbishop Whately. The word has also been derived from an alchemist named Homberg, who professed to have discovered the Philosopher’s stone. Rotten, Slang Dictionary, p. 157. The analogous slang word Bosh has, I imagine, been imported from the Cape, the metaphor having been taken from the rubbishing and worthless “ bush,^^ which is burned regularly every autunm. See, however. Rotten, Slang Diet. p. 81.
Words and Places
386
is due to the member for the county of Buncombe, in North Carolina. In the state legislature he made a speech, full of high-flown irrelevant nonsense, and when called to order he explained that he was not speaking to the House, he was talking to Buncombe. Castle Blarney is, of course, in Ireland, and the famous stone can still be seen and kissed by those who desire to test its virtues. By a good-natured allusion to another peculiarity of our Irish fellow-countrymen, we term a certain characteristic confusion of ideas an Hibemianism.
A Spruce person was originally a person dressed in the Prussian fashion. Thus Hall, the chronicler, describes the appearance of Sir Edward Haward and Sir Thomas Parre “ in doblettes of crimosin veluet, voyded lowe on the backe, and before to the cannell bone, lased on the breastes with chaynes of siluer, and ouer that shorte clokes of crimosyn satyne, and on their heades hattes after dauncers fashion, with feasauntes fethers in theim: They were appareyled after the fashion of Prusia or Spruce.’’ ^
Though the pilgrims of the eighth and succeeding centuries were often only ‘‘ commercial travellers,” and still more fre- quently vacation tourists,” ^ and although the visitation of foreign shrines did much to dispel national prejudices and to unite nations, yet we may be glad, on moral as well as on religious grounds, that the practice of pilgrimages, which formed so noticeable a feature in the life of the Middle Ages, has now ceased, at least among ourselves ; for in the word Saunterer we have a proof that, in popular estimation, idle and vagabond habits were acquired by those who made the pilgrimage to the Sainte Terre, or Holy Land.® A Roamer was one who had visited the tombs of the two Apostles at Rome, and this word conveys also in its present usage an intimation of unsettled habits similar to that which is contained in the word saunterer. The Italian word romeo implies no moral censure, but means simply a pilgrim; and hence we may perhaps infer that where the distance to be traversed was small, the evil effects of the pilgrimage were not so manifest.
From the Canterbury pilgrimages to the shrine of St. Thomas comes the word Canter,^ which is an abbreviation of the phrase
^ Hall, Chronicle, p. 513.
* See Thrupp, Anglo-Saxon Home, p. 241.
® The Palestine pilgrims were also called palmers, from the palm branches which they brought home with them from the Holy Sepulchre.
* The word canter is not found in any continental language, as it would be if it were derived, as has been supposed, from cantherius, a gelding.
Words Derived from Places 387
a Canterbury gallop ’’ ^ — the easy ambling pace of the pilgrims as they rode along the grassy lane which follows the foot of the North Downs of Kent for man}'' miles, and which still retains its title of the Pilgrims’ Road.
St. Fiacre (Fiachra) was an Irish saint of great renown, who established himself as a hermit at Meaux, some five-and-twenty miles from Paris. His tomb became a great place of pilgrimage, which was performed even by royal personages, such as Anne of Austria. The miracle-working shrine being frequented by many infirm persons who were unable to perform the pilgrimage on foot, carriages were kept for their convenience at an inn in the suburbs of Paris, which had the sign of St. Fiacre ; and now, long after the pilgrimages have ceased, the hired carriages of Paris retain the name of Fiacres.^
St. Etheldreda, or, as she was commonly called, St. Awdrey, was the patron saint of the Isle of Ely. She is said to have died of a swelling in the throat, which she considered as a judgment on her for her youthful fondness for necklaces. Hence, at the fair held at the time of the annual pilgrimage, it was the custom for the pilgrims to purchase, as mementoes of their journey,^ chains of lace or silk, which were called ‘‘ St. Awdrey ’s chains.” These being of a cheap and flimsy structure, the name of St.
See Wedgwood, Eng. Etym. vol. i. p. 295 ; Stanley, Memorials of Canterbury, p. 196.
^ It is possible that the word gallop may be in like manner connected with Galoppe in Flanders. Diefenbach derives it from wallen, to wander. From the Cheviot Hills we have the slang verb to Chevy, a reminiscence of Chevy Chase.
* See Menage, Origines, p. 315; Alban Butler, Lives of the Saints; Yonge, Christian Names^ vol. ii. p. 97.
* So keys were brought away by the roraeos who had visited the tomb of St. Peter, palm-branches by the palmers from the Holy Land, and scallop- shells from the sea-shore near Compost ella. St. James’ Day is still com- memorated by London urchins by oyster-shell grottos, for the construction of which the contributions of passers-b}*^ are solicited. On the various signs of pilgrimage see the description of a pilgrim in Piers Ploughman, lines 3541-3552: —
“ A bolle and a bagge He bar by his syde.
And hundred of ampulles On his hat seten,
Signes of Synay,
And shelles of Galice,
And many a crouche on his cloke.
And keyes of Rome,
And the vernycle bi-fore;
For men sholde knowne,
And se bi hise signes.
Whom he sought haddc.”
Words and Places
388
Awdrey, corrupted into Tawdry, has come to be the designation of cheap lace and showy finery
In a wild district of Derbyshire, between Macclesfield and Buxton, there is a village called Flash, surrounded by uninclosed land. The squatters on these commons, with their wild gipsy habits, travelled about the neighbourhood from fair to fair, using a slang dialect of their own. They were called the Flash men, and their dialect Flash talk; and it is not difficult to see the stages by which the word Flash has reached its present significa- tion.2 A Slang is a narrow strip of waste land by the roadside, such as those which are chosen by gipsies for their encampments. To be ‘‘ out on the slang,” in the lingo used by thieves and gipsies, means to travel about the country as a hawker,^ en- camping by night on the roadside slangs, A travelling show is also called a slang. It is easy to see how the term was trans- ferred to the language spoken by hawkers and itinerant show- men.^ The phrase, “ using Billingsgate,” which has spread from England to America, reminds us that the language of London fishwives is not so choice as their fish; and “ a Babel of sounds ” refers to the confusion of tongues at the Tower of Babylon or Babel.
A few remaining terms, derived from places, may be here collected.
The winding river Meander has given us a verb; and the name of the Rubicon has now almost passed into our vocabulary. From the Moriscoes of Spain we have the words Morris boards, and Morris dances.^
Political parties have sometimes assumed names derived from local sources. The leaders of the Girondists were the deputies from the department of the Gironde. The Jacobins took their name from the convent of St. James, in which the meetings of the revolutionary club were held. A Templar now studies law in the former residence of the crusading Knights of the Temple of Jerusalem. The Court of Arches was originally held in the arches of Bow Church — St. Mary de Arcubus — ^the
^ See Notes and Queries, second series, vol. xi. pp. 226, 300; Taylor, Antiquitates Curiosce, p. 65; Stanley, Memorials of Canterbury, p. 221.
® Smiles, Lives of the Engineers, vol. ii. p. 307.
® Hotten, Slang Dictionary, p. 234.
* A writer in Notes and Queries, second series, vol. xi. p. 471, and vol. iii. p. 445, derives slang from the name of the Dutch genersil Slangenberg, who commanded a part of the English forces, and whose unintelligible objurgations seem to have puzzled the troops under his command.
® Skinner, Etymologicon, s. v. ; Drake, Shakspeare and his Times, vol. i. PP- 157, 158.
Words Derived from Places 389
cr3rpt of which was used by Wren to support the present super- structure. When we talk of finding ourselves in a perfect Bedlam we do not always remember that the rapacity and the vandalism of the English Reformers were redeemed by some good deeds — one of which was the assignment of the convent of St. Mary of Bethlehem for the reception of lunatics, who used previously to be chained to a post, if indeed they were not left utterly uncared for. The hospital of St. Lazarus, at Naples, has, in a somewhat similar way, given a name to those who would be its most fitting occupants — the Neapolitan Lazzaroni.
The porch of a cathedral is called the Galilee, probably because to the crusaders and pilgrims advancing from the north, Galilee formed the frontier or entrance to the Holy Land.^
On the Mons Palatinus — a name the etymology of which carries us back to the time when sheep were bleating on the slope ^ — was the residence of the Roman emperors, which, from its site, was called the Palati(n)um, or Palatium. Hence the word Palace has come to be applied to all royal or imperial residences. The Count Palatine was, in theory, the official who had the superintendence of the household of the Carolingian emperors. As the foremost of the twelve peers of France, the Count Palatine took a prominent place in mediaeval romance, and a Paladin is the impersonification of chivalrous devotion. His feudal fief was the Palatinate — the rich Rhine valley above Frankfort. The counties Palatine of Chester, Durham, and Lancaster are so called on account of the delegated royalty — the jura regalia — formerly exercised by the Earls of Chester, the Bishops of Durham, and the Dukes of Lancaster.^ It is one of the curiosities of language that a petty little hill-slope in Italy should have thus transferred its name to a hero of romance, to a German state, to three English counties, to a glass house at Sydenham, and to all the royal residences in Europe.^
^ Stanley, Sinai and Palestine, p. 356.
* So the Ceramicus, or “ Potter’s field,” at Athens, was converted into the most beautiful quarter of the city, containing the academy, lyceum, etc. The name of the Tuileries denotes that the site was once a “ Tile yard; ” and that of the Escurial shows that the palace was built upon a “ heap of refuse from an exhausted mine.” See p. 277, supra.
® Pembroke and Hexham, also march or border towns, had palatine rights. Lappenberg, Anglo-Saxon Kings, vol. ii. p. 62.
* See Yonge, Christian Names, vol. ii. p. 353; Menage, Origines, p. 506; Max Muller, Lectures, second series, p. 251*
CHAPTER XVIII
onomatology; or, the principles of name-giving
Dangers which beset the etymologist — Rules of investigation — Names in the United States — List of some of the chief components of Local Names.
The study of local names can, as yet, hardly claim the dignity of a science. With the exception of Ernst Forstemann, those who have written on the subject have too often been contented to compile collections of “ things not generally known,’’ without attempting either to systematise the facts which they have brought together, or to deduce any general principles which might serve to guide the student in his researches.
There are few subjects, perhaps, in which such numerous dangers beset the inquirer. The patent blunders, and the absurdly fanciful explanations of etymologists have become a byword. It may be well, therefore, to clear the way for a scientific treatment of the subject by an examination of some of these sources of error, and by the suggestion of a few obvious rules which should be constantly kept in view by those who attempt the investigation of the meaning of ancient names.
The fundamental principle to be borne in mind is an axiom which alone makes the study of local names possible, and which has been tacitly assumed in the title of this volume, and throughout the preceding chapters. This axiom asserts that local names are in no case arbitrary sounds. They are always ancient Words, or fragments of ancient words — each of them, in short, constituting the earliest chapter in the local history of the Places to which they severally refer.
Assuming, therefore, as axiomatic, the significancy of local names, it need hardly be said that in endeavouring to detect the meaning of a geographical name, the first requisite is to discover the language from which the name has been derived. The choice will mostly lie within narrow limits — geographical and historical considerations generally confining our choice to the three or four languages which may have been vernacular in the region to which the name belongs. No interpretation
390
Onomatology 391
of a name can be admitted, however seemingly appropriate, until we have first satisfied ourselves of the historical possibility, not to say probability, of the proposed etymology. For example, Lambeth, as we have seen, is a Saxon name, meaning the ioam*hithe, or muddy landing-place. We must not, as a Saturday Reviewer has amusingly observed, plume ourselves on the discovery that lama is a Mongolian term for a chief priest, and heth a Semitic word for a house, and thus interpret the name of the place where the primate lives as the house of the chief priest.’" ^
In the next place, the earliest documentary form of the name must be ascertained. In the case of an English name Kemble’s collection of Anglo-Saxon Charters,^ Domesday Book, and Dugdale, must be diligently searched. For Scottish names Innes’ Origines Parochiales Scotioe will generally supply the necessary information. For names in France, the Dictionnaire des toutes les Communes de la France, by Girault de Saint Far- geau, may often be consulted with advantage. But if the name to be investigated occurs in Germany, all trouble will be saved by a reference to Forstemann’s systematic list of mediaeval German names — the Altdeutsches Namenbuch — a work which only a German could have conceived or executed, and which, even in Germany, must be considered a marvellous monument of erudite labour.
If no early form of the name can be discovered, we must, guided by the analogy of similar names, endeavour to ascertain it by conjecture, bearing carefully in mind those well-known laws of phonetic change to which reference has already been made.®
This having been done, it remains to interpret the name which has been thus recovered or reconstructed. To do this with success requires a knowledge of the ancient grammatical structure and the laws of composition which prevailed in the
^ Etymologies quite as absurd have been seriously propounded. Thus Jacobi, in his Bedeutung der bohmischen Dor/nameftf derives from the Sclavonic the names of Jerusalem, Jericho, Africa, the Tigris, and the Euphrates. His absurdities are, if possible, surpassed by George Dyer, who, in his Vulgar Errors Ancient and Modern, derives from Welsh roots all Scriptural names — Adam and Eve, Shem, Ham, and Japhet, the Nile, the four rivers of Paradise, etc. ; and he naively says of those who refuse to accept his absurdities, “ Our mistakes . . . afford melancholy instances of want of judgment, . . . and they prove that om: opinions may not rest so much on rational grounds, as on weak imaginations, which in such cases as herein cited produce ridiculous and chimerical allusions or ludicrous and delusive explanations.” — p. Ixxxv.
* Codex Diplomaiicus Mvi Saxonici, * See p. 341, supra.
Words and Places
392
language in which the name is significant ^ — the relative position, for instance, of adjective and substantive, ^ and the usage of prepositions and formative particles.
Great aid will be derived from the analogy of other names in the same neighbourhood. A sort of epidemic seems to have prevailed in the nomenclature of certain districts. There is hardly a single English county, or French province, or German principality, which does not possess its characteristic clusters of names — all constructed on the same type.^ The key that will unlock one of these names will probably also unlock the rest of those in the same group.
Having thus arrived at a probable interpretation of the name in question, we must proceed to test the result. If the name be topographic or descriptive, we must ascertain if it conforms to the physical features of the spot; if, on the other hand, the name be historic in its character, we must satisfy ourselves as to the historic possibility of its bestowal.
This scientific investigation of names is not, indeed, always possible. In the case of the Old World, the simple-minded children of semi-barbarous times have unconsciously conformed to the natural laws which regulate the bestowal of names. The names of the Old World may be systematised — they describe graphically the physical features of the country, or the circum- stances of the early settlers.
But in the New World, settled, not by savages but by civilised men, a large proportion of the names are thoroughly barbarous in character. We find the map of the United States thickly bespattered with an incongruous medley of names — for the most part utterly inappropriate, and fulfilling very insufficiently the chief purposes which names are intended to fulfil. In every state of the Union we find repeated, again and again, such unmeaning names as Thebes, Cairo, Memphis, Troy, Rome, Athens, Utica, Big Bethel, and the like. What a poverty of the inventive faculty is evinced by these endless repetitions, not to speak of the intolerable impertinence displayed by those who thus ruthlessly wrench the grand historic names from the map
^ For Celtic names, the Grammatica Celtica, of Zeuss, will be foimd in- dispensable, and for Teutonic names, Grimm's Deutsche Grammatik.
* See p. 1 71, supra,
* The local names invented by our popular novelists frequently set all etymological propriety at defiance. We have all sorts of impossible com- pounds, we have thorpes, holtns^ and thwaites in Wessex, Cornish names in Wales, and Kentish forms in the Midland counties. Mrs. Howitt's novel of The Cost of Caergwyn forms a praiseworthy exception to the general rule.
Onomatology 393
of the Old World, and apply them, by the score, without the least shadow of congruity, to collections of log huts in some Western forest. The incongruity between the names and the appearance of some of these places is amusing. Thus Corinth “consists of a wooden grog-shop and three log shanties; the Acropolis is represented by a grocery store. ... All that can be seen of the city of Troy ... is a timber house, three log huts, a saw mill, and twenty negroes.’’ ^
The more ancient names in the States are for the most part far less objectionable. Indian names, such as Niagara, Massa- chusetts, Missouri, or Arkansas, though not always euphonious, are otherwise unexceptionable. And the same may be said of most of the names given by the trappers and pioneers of the Far West, names such as Blue Ridge, North Fork, Pine Bluff, Red River, Hickory Flats, Big Bone Lick, Otter Creek, and the town of Bad Axe. Henpeck City and Louse Village, both in California, are, to say the least, very expressive, and the town of Why Not, in Mississippi, seems to have been the invention of some squatter of doubtful mind.^ Such names as Louisiana, Columbia, Pittsburg, Charleston, New York, Albany, Balti- more, Washington, Raleigh, Franklin, or Jefferson, have an historical significance and appropriateness which incline us to excuse the confusion arising from the frequency with which some of them have been bestowed.^
Much also may be said in favour of names like Boston, Ply- mouth, and Portsmouth, whereby the colonists have striven to reproduce, in a land of exile, the very names of the beloved spots which they had left. Smithtown and Murfreesboro’ may perhaps pass muster, though Brownsville ^ and Indianopolis have a somewhat hybrid appearance, Flos, Tiny, and the other town- ships which a late Canadian Governor named after his wife’s lapdogs, are at all events distinctive names, though perhaps showing a want of respect to the inhabitants.® But the scores of Dresdens, Troys, and Carthages, are utterly indefensible; they betray quite as much poverty of invention as Twenty- fourth Street, Fifth Avenue, or No. lo Island, while they do not possess the practical advantages of the numerical system of
^ Russell, Diary North and Souths vol. ii. pp. 45, 46.
^ See Bowditch, Suffolk Surnames, p. 259. ® See p. 297, supra,
* Brownwill or Brownwell would more correctly denote the abode of Brown: see pp. 127, 128, supra. The villes and cities which we find so pro- fusely in the States show the land-speculating and grandiose character of the nation, j^ist as the hams, tons, and worths of England are a proof of Anglo-Saxon seclusiveness. See p. 100, supra,
® Quarterly Review, vol. cxvi. p. 3.
Words and Places
394
nomenclature, and must be a source of unending perplexity in the post-office, the booking-office and the schoolroom. The geographical etymologist regards a large portion of the names in the United States with feelings which are akin to those experienced by the ecclesiologist who, having traced with delight the national developments of the pointed architecture of western Europe, beholds the incongruous restorations — so called — for which the last century is to blame, or the Pagan temples, the Egyptian tombs, and Chinese pagodas, with which architectural plagiarists have deformed our cities. Such plagiarisms and incongruities are as distasteful as the analogous barbarisms with which the map of the United States is so woefully disfigured. The further preparation of such aesthetic monstrosities as those to which reference has been made is now happily impossible. Our architects have taken up the idea of Gothic art, and developed, from its principles, new and original creations, instead of reproducing, usque ad nauseam, servile copies or dislocated fragments of ancient buildings. Would that the same regeneration could be effected in the practice of name-giving. If the true principles of Anglo-Saxon nomenclature were understood, our Anglo-American and Australian cousins might construct an endless series of fresh names which might be at once harmonious, distinctive, characteristic, and in entire consonance with the genius of the language.^
When we attempt a scientific analysis and classification of local names, we find that by far the greater number contain two component elements. One of these, which in Celtic names is generally the prefix, and in Teutonic names the suffix, is some general term meaning island, river, mountain, dwelling or inclosure, as the case may be. Thus we have the Celtic prefixes Aber, Inver, Bally, Dun, Elil, Llan, Ben, Glen, Strath, Loch, Innis, Inch; and the Teutonic suffixes, borough, by, bourn, den, don, ton, ham, thorpe, cote, hurst, hill, ley, shiels, set, stow, sted, wick, worth, fell, law, dale, gay, holm, ey, stone, and beck.
^ Many of the Swabian patronymics which have not been reproduced in England would furnish scores of new names of a thoroughly characteristic Anglo-Saxon type, if combined with appropriate suffixes, such as ham, ton, hurst, ley, wcarth, by, den, don, combe, sted, borough, thorpe, cote, stoke, set, thwaite, and holt. Thus Senningham, Wickington, Erkington, Fre- lington, Moringham, Hermingham, Lenhington, Teppington, Ersingham, Steslingham, Mensington, Relvington, Plenningham, Aldington, Delking- ton, Weighingham, Ensington, Melvington, are characteristic Anglo-Saxon names, which nevertheless do not appear in the list of English villages.
Onomatology 395
This element in names is called the ‘‘ Grundwort ’’ by Forste- mann.^ We have already, in the case of river-names, called it the substantival element. The other component serves to dis- tinguish the island, river, or village, from other neighbouring islands, streams, or villages This portion of the name, which we have called adjectival, has been denominated the “ Bestim- mungswort^’ by Forstemann.^ It is frequently a personal name^ — thus Grimsby is Grim’s dwelling, Ullsthorpe is Ulf’s village, Balmaghie is the town of the Maghies, Clapham is the home of Clapha, Kensington the homestead of the Kensings. In a large number of cases, instead of a personal name we have a descriptive adjective denoting the relative magnitude, the relative position or antiquity, the excellence, or, sometimes, the inferiority of the place, the colour or nature of the soil, or its characteristic productions.® A full enumeration, not to say a discussion, of these roots would occupy a volume — a few of the more important are enumerated below.
^ Forstemann, Die Deutschen Ortsnamen, pp. 26-107.
* There are only about 500 German Grundworter, which, variously com- bined with the Bestimmungsworter, constitute the 500,000 names which are found upon the map of Germany. Forstemann, Ortsnamen, p. 108.
* Forstemann, Ibid. pp. 109- 174; Bender, Deutschen Ortsnamen, pp. 97, 98.
♦While local names are frequently derived from personal names, the converse has been the case in a still greater number of instances. See Pott, Personennamen, p. 330, and passim; Dixon, Surnames, passim.
‘ On German roots of this class, such as breit, platt, alt, neu, weiss, Schwartz, etc., see Forstemann, Die Deutschen Ortsnamen, and Bender, Die Deutschen Ortsnamen, pp. 97, 98.
o 517
396
Words and Places
LIST OF SOME OF THE CHIEF ADJECTIVAL COMPONENTS OF LOCAL NAMES
I. WORDS DENOTING RELATIVE MAGNITUDE
From the Celtic word mor or mawr, great, we have the names of Benmore, and Penmaen-Mawr, the great mountains, Kil- more, the great church, and Glenmore, the great glen. Much Wenlock, Macclesfield, Maxstoke in Warwickshire, Great Missenden, Grampound, and Granville, contain Teutonic and Romance roots of the same import. Similarly Mississippi is an Indian term of precisely the same meaning as the neighbour- ing Spanish name Rio Grande, which, as well as the Arabic Guadalquiver {keber, great), and the Sarmatian word Wolga, signifies “ the great river.’’ ^
From the Celtic beg or bach, little, we have Bally begg and Inis beg, Glydwr Fach, Pont Neath Vechan, and Cwm Bychan. We find several Teutonic Littleboroughs, Littleburys, Littletons, and Clintons. Majorca and Minorca are the greater and lesser isles. Boca Chica is the great mouth. We find the prefix broad, in Braddon, Bradley, Bradshaw, Bradford, and Ehren- breitstein, and some of the Stratfords and Strettons are probably from the root “ strait,” and not “ street.”
II. RELATIVE POSITION
The points of a compass afford an obvious means of dis- tinguishing between the places of the same name. Thus we have Norfolk and Suffolk, Wessex, Essex, and Sussex, Northamp- ton and Southampton, Surrey, Westmoreland, Northumberland, and Sutherland; Norton (57) and Sutton (77), Norbury (7) and Sudbury (7), Easton (14) and Weston (36), Eastbury (21) and Westbury (10), Easthorpe and Westhorpe, Norleigh, Sudley and Westly.^ The Erse iar, the west, appears in the name of
^ Miiller, Ugrische Volkstamm, vol. ii. p. 105.
® See Leo, Anglo-Saxon Nantes^ p. 10; Vilmar, Ortsnamen, p. 239; Forstemann, Ortsnamen, p. 133.
Onomatology 397
Ormunde or West Munster, as well, possibly, as in those of Ireland and Argyle.^
The Zuyder Zee is the southern sea; Dekkan means the south in Sanskrit ; and Algarbe is an Arabic name meaning the west.^ The Ostrogoths and Visigoths were the eastern and western divisions of the Goths, as distinguished from the Massagetse, or the great Goths, the chief body of the nation.^ Austria (Oestreich) is the eastern empire, Westphalia the western plain, and the Weser (anciently Wisaraha) is the western river.^ From the close resemblance of the sounds it is sometimes difficult to distinguish between roots meaning the east and those meaning the west. Thus Ostend in Belgium is at the west (ouest) end of the great canal; and Ostend in Essex is the east end of the land. In Chinese, pih and nan mean respectively north and south. Hence we have Pih-king and Nan-king, the northern and southern courts ; Pih-ling and Nan-ling, the northern and southern mountains; Nan-hai, the southern sea,® and the kingdom of An-nam, or the ‘‘ peace of the south.’’ ®
Peraea is the country “ beyond ” the Jordan. Antilibanus is the range ‘‘ oppK)site ” Lebanon. Transylvania is the country beyond the forest-clad range of mountains which bounds Hungary to the south-east. Hinton (14) is a common name for a village behind a hill, as in the case of Cherry Hinton, near Cambridge.
From the German prepositions, an, in, and zu, we have the names of Amsteg, Andermat, Imgrund, Zermatt, Zerbruggen, and 2^rmagem. From the Anglo-Saxon cBt, at, we have Atford, Adstock, Otford, and Abridge.^ From the Celtic preposition ar, upon, we obtain Armorica, the land upon the sea,” and Arles {ar4aeih), the town “ upon the marsh.” ® In the names of Pomerania, and of Prussia, we have the Sclavonic preposition po, by. With Netherby, Dibden, Dibdale, Deeping (the low meadow), Holgate and Holloway, we may contrast High Wycoml^, High Ercal, Upton (42), Higham, Highgate, and Highstreet. ^
^ See Betham, Gael^ p. 81.
* See pp. 71, 93, supra.
’ Bosworth, Origin, p. 114; Pictet, Orig. Indo-Europ. part i. p. 83; Forstemann, Ortsnamen, p. 212.
* Forstemann, Ortsnamen, p. 134.
*Chamock, Local Etymology, pp. 159, 204; Gibson, Etym. Geogr. p. 147.
• Quarterly Review, vol. cxvi. p. 284.
^ Ingram, Saxon Chron. p. 425.
• See pp. 78, 342, supra.
398
Words and Places
III. RELATIVE AGE
There are numerous English villages which go by the name of Althorp, Alton^ Elston^ Elton, Eltham, Elbottle, Alcester, Aldbury, Abury, Albury, Aldborough, Alburgh, and Oldbury, and on the Continent we find Altorf, Starwitz,^ Torres Vedras, Civita Vecchia near Rome, and Citta Vecchia in Malta.
On the other hand, there are in England alone more than 120 villages called Newton, besides Newport (12), Newnham (ii), Newland (ii), Newark, Newbiggen (17), Newbold (ii), New- bottle, Newstead, Newbury, Newby, Newcastle ^ (10), New- hall and Newburgh, which we may compare with Continental names like Villeneuve, Villanova, Neusiedel, Neustadt, Nov- gorod, Neville, Neufchatel, Nova Zembla, Naples, — Newfound- land, and Nablus.
IV. NUMERALS
In ancient Anglo-Saxon and German names, the numerals which most commonly occur are four and seven, numbers which were supposed to have a mystical meaning. Such are Sevenoaks, Klostersieben and Siebenbiirgen. Nine-elms dates from a later period. We have a mountain group called the Twelve Pins in Ireland, and Fiinfkirchen and Zweibriicken in Germany. Neunkirchen, however, is only a corruption of Neuenkirchen, or New Church.^ The modern names of the ancient Roman stations in the Upper Rhine valley, near Wallen- stadt, are curiously derived from the Roman numerals. We find, at regular intervals, as we proceed up the valley, the villages of Seguns, Tertzen, Quarten, Quinten, and Sewes.^
The three cites of Oea, Sabrata, and Leptis in Africa, went
^ From the Sclavonic stary, old.
2 The New Castle built by the Normans on the Tyne is now 800 years old, yet still keeps its name; and NSblus (Neapolis) in Palestine is twice that age, having been founded by Vespasian after the destruction of Samaria. New College is one of the oldest colleges in Oxford, having been founded in 1386, and New Palace Yard, Westminster, is a memori^ of the palace built by Rufus.
® Bender, Ortsnamen, p. 98. On names of this class see Forstemann, Orisnamen, p. 125.
* Tschudi, Hauptschlussel, p. 290; Holtzmann, Kelten und Germ. p. 137.
Onomatology 399
collectively* by the name of Tripolis.^ Tripoli in Syria was a joint colony from the three cites of Tyre, Sidon, and Aradus.^ On the Lake Ontario there is the Bay of the Thousand Isles. Terceira, one of the Azores, is the third Island. The Laccadives are the ten thousand islands, and the Maldives are the thousand isles. The Punjab is the land of the five rivers, and the Doab ^ is the country between the ‘‘ two rivers,” the Ganges and the Jumna. Plynlimmon is a corruption of Pum-lumon, the five hills; and Mizraim, the Biblical name of Egypt, describes either the two ” banks of the Nile, or the “ two ” districts of Upper and Lower Egypt."*
V. NATURAL PRODUCTIONS
A far larger number of names are derived from natural pro- ductions. Mineral springs are often denoted by some corruption of the Latin word Aquae. Thus we have Aix in Savoy, and Aix near Marseilles; Aix la Chapelle, or Aachen, in Rhenish Prussia; Acqui in Piedmont; and Dax, or Dacqs, in Gascony. The misunderstood name Aquae Solis, or Aquae, probably suggested to the Anglo-Saxons the name of Ake mannes ceaster,^ the invalid’s city, which was changed at a later period to Bath, from a root which also supplies names to Bakewell, anciently Bade- canwylla, in Derbyshire, and to the numerous Badens on the Continent. Thermopylae took its name from the hot springs in the defile ; Tierra del Fuego from its volcanic fires ; and Reik- javik, or “ reek bay,” was the Norse settlement in the neigh- bourhood of the Geysers,® or ‘‘ boilers.” Hecla was so called from the “ cloak ” of smoke hanging over the mountain. Vesuvius is an Oscan name, meaning the emitter of smoke and
* Bochart, vol. iii. p. 479.
* See p. 23, supra,
* The ah here is the Sanskrit and Persian word for water, which comes to us from the Persian through the Arabic, and which we have in the word jula/> {gulf rose; and a6, water), as well as in shrub and syrop (scharafc). Diez, Etymol. Worterb. pp. 175, 319; cf. Latham, Eng. Lang. vol. i. p. 355; Pihan, Glossaire, p. 169; Engelmann, GlossairCf p. 83.
*The word survives in Misr, the enchorial name of Cairo. Stanley, Jewish Church f p. 76; p. 73, supra.
* The road from London to Bath long went by the name of Akeman Street, which survives in the name of a hollow still called Jacuman's Bottom. Gough’s Camden f vol. i. p. 119.
* The words geyser, yeast, geist, gust, and ghost, are from the same root, which signifies something boiling, bubbling up, or overflowing. Cf. the cognation of dvefios and animus. Pictet, Origines, pt. ii. p. 540; Gladstone, Homer, p. 303.
Words and Places
400
sparks.^ The basaltic columns of Staffa are well described by its name, ‘‘ the isle of steps/’ a Norse name which we have repeated in the case of the basaltic rocks of Stappen in Iceland.
Missouri is the muddy river, and the name may be compared with those of the Foulbeck and the Lamboum; while the names of Accho or Acre, and of Scinde, describe the sandy nature of the country. 2 Sandwich is the sandy bay: we have many analogous names, such as Sandhurst, Sandon, Sandford, Sand- bach, and Peschkow, which last is derived from pesk, the Sclavonic word for sand.^ Alum Bay, in the Isle of Wight, is a modern name of the same class.
The Rio de la Plata, or river of plate, took its name from a few gold and silver ornaments which Sebastian Cabot foimd in the possession of the natives, and which he hoped were indica- tions of an El Dorado, or golden land, in the interior. The Gold Coast and the Ivory Coast were names appropriately bestowed by early traders. The name of the Andes is derived from the Peruvian word anta^ which means copper.
Many names are derived from animals. We find that of the Ox in Oxley, and perhaps in Oxford; and that of the Cow in Cowley ; wol, the Sclavonic name for an ox, appears in the names of Wollau (14), Wollin (6), and many other places.^ We find Swine at Swindon, Swinf ord, and Swingfield : — Kine at Kinton : — ^Neat Cattle at Nutford, and Netley;^ and Sheep at Shipton and Shipley. The names of the Faroe Islands, and of Fairfield, a mountain in Westmoreland, are probably from the Norse faaty sheep.
Deer, or perhaps wild animals generally (German, Thier ; Anglo-Saxon, deor) are found at Deerhurst and Dyrham in Gloucestershire, Dereham in Norfolk, Dere worth in Northamp- tonshire, and Derby, anciently Deoraby. Schwerin, which serves as a name for a German principality and three other places in Germany, is the exact Sclavonic equivalent of Derby.
Other wild animals whose names often occur are: —
The Stag at Hertford and Heurtley: the Fox or Tod at Foxley, Foxhill, Foxhough, Todburn, and Todfield: the Wild Boar at Evershot and Eversley: the Seal at Selsey: the Otter at Otterboum in Hants: the Beaver at Beverley and Nant
^ Benfey, in Hofer’s Zeitschrift, vol. ii. pp. 115, 116; Humboldt, Cosmos, vol. i. p. 449. See p. 324, supra.
2 See Stanley, Sinai and Pal, p. 264.
® Buttmann, Ortsnamen^ p. 103. * Buttmann, Ibid, p. 122.
• Morris, Local Etymology , p. 10.
Onomatology 40 1
Frangon:^ the Badger^ or Broc, at Bagshot^ at Broxbourne, and at Brokenborough in Wilts^ anciently Broken-eber-egge, or Badger-boar-comer.2
The Crane is found at Cranbourne^ and the Eagle at Eamley in Sussex, and Arley in Warwickshire, both of which are written Earneleah in the Saxon charters.
Ely was once famous for the excellence of its eels. In the Isle of Ely rents used to be paid in eels.
The Norse word for a salmon is lax. Hence we have Laxvoe, or ‘‘ salmon bay ” in Shetland, Loch Laxford in Sutherland, the Laxay, or ‘‘ salmon river,” in the Hebrides, and also in Cantire, and the river Laxey in the Isle of Man, and five rivers called Laxa, in Iceland. We have Laxweir on the Shannon, Leixlip, or salmon-leap, on the Liffey, and Abbey Leix, in Queen’s County.
Zeboim is the ravine of hyaenas, and Ajalon the valley of stags. Berne takes its name from the bears with which it formerly abounded. Arlberg in the Tyrol is the Adlers berg, or eagle’s mountain: and Hapsburg, the stammschloss of the Austrian dynasty, is hawk castle.^
Swan River was so called from the number of black swans seen there by Vlaming, the first discoverer.^ The Azores when discovered were found to abound in hawks; the Canaries in wild dogs ; the Camaroons ® in shrimps ; the Galapagos Islands in turtles ; and the Bay of Panama in mud fish. There are five islands called Tortuga, either from the turtles found on the coast, or possibly from the turtle-like shape.® The island of Margarita received its name from the pearls which Columbus obtained from the inhabitants.
The island of Barbadoes is said to have derived its name from the long beard-like streamers of moss hanging from the branches of the trees ; ^ the island of Barbuda from the long beards of the natives ; and the Ladrones from their thievish propensities. The Patagonians were so called by Magalhaens from their clumsy shoes. The name of Venezuela, or little Venice, is due
^ See p. 332, supra. * See p. 331, supra.
® On German names from animals, see Forstemann, Ortsnatnen, pp. 143- 147; Buttmann, Ortsnamen, p. 18. On Sclavonic names, see Buttmann, Ortsnamen, p. 120. On Norse names, see Ferguson, Northmen^ p. 124.
* Chamock, Local Etymol. p. 261.
* Portuguese camaroes, shrimps. Burton, Abeokuta, vol. i. p. 18; vol. ii. p. 48.
* Thornbury, Monarchs of the Main, vol. i. p. 28.
’ Burton, Abeokuta, vol. ii. p. 78.
402 Words and Places
to the Indian villages which were found built on piles in the lake Maracaybo.^
Names derived from those of plants are foimd in great abund- ance.® We have, for example —
The Oak — ^Acton, Auckland, Okely, Oakley, Sevenoaks.® From the Erse doire^ an oak, we deduce the names of Derry and Klildare.
Elm — ^Nine Elms, Elmdon, Elmstead, Elmswell^
Ash — ^Ashton, Ashley.
Beech — Buckland, Buckhurst.
Birch — Berkeley, Bircholt, Birbeck.
Lime — Lindfield, L)mdhurst.
Thom — ^Thomey. Names derived from the thorn are very frequent in the Saxon charters.
Hazel — ^Hasilmere.
Alder — ^Allerton, Aldershot, Allerdale, Olney, Ellerton.
Apple — ^Avallon, or Apple Island,^ Appleby, Appleton,
Cherry — Cherry Hinton.
Broom — Bromley, Brompton.
Fern — ^Famham, Famborough.
Rushes — ^Rusholme.
Sedge — Sedgemoor, Sedgeley.
Reeds — ^Rodney, Retford.
Shrubs — Shrewsbury and Shawbury. The names of Brescia and Bmssels have been referred to a root connected with the low Latin hruscia, thicket, or bmshwood.®
The chief Mavonic roots ® of this class are: — diiby the oak. There are 200 places called Dubrau. brasa, the birch, occurs in the names of 40 places. E,g, Braslaf.
lipa, the lime, occurs in the names of 600 places. E.g, Leipsig, the “ linden town.” topol, the poplar. E,g. Toplitz.
The Mount of Olives and the Spice Islands are familiar instances of this mode of nomenclature. Saffron Walden took
^ Cooley, Hist, of Discovery, vol. ii. p. 49 ; Thombury, Monarchs, vol. i. p. 205.
2 On German names from plants, see Buttmann, Orisnamen, p. 9 ; Bender, Ortsnatnen, p. 114; Forstemann, Ortsnamen, pp. 60, 140. For Norse names, see Ferguson, Northmen, p. 124.
® Ingram, Sax. Chron. p. 425.
* Mone, Geschichte Heidenthums, vol. ii. p. 456.
® See Diefenbach, Celtica, i. p. 217. Brussels may, however, be from the Flemish hreecksal, a swamp.
• See Buttmann, Ortsnamen, pp. 88-94.
Onomatology 403
its name from the saffron, the cultivation of which was intro- duced in the reign of Edward III. and which still to some extent continues.^ Gulistan is the place of roses.* The name of Scio comes from scino, mastic. Tadmor, or Palmyra, is the city of palms. Phoenicia is perhaps the land of palms.^ En Rimmon is the Fountain of the Pomegranate. Cana, which stands close to the lake, is the reedy Beth Tapuah is the apple orchard,^ and Anab means the grape. Java is the isle of nutmegs ® {jay all) ^ and Pulopenang means, in Malay, the island of the areca nut. Brazil, as we have seen,^ was named from the red dye-wood, which was the first article of export. Madeira, when discovered by the Portuguese in 1418, was found unin- habited and covered with dense forests. It received its name from the Portuguese word madera, timber. The Rio Madeira, an affluent of the Amazons, still flows through the immense forests from which it took its name.
VI. NAMES IMPLYING EXCELLENCE OR THE REVERSE
Names implying the excellence of the locality are far more common than those implying the reverse. Thus Formosa, Funen, and Joppa, in Portuguese, Danish, and Hebrew, mean fine, or beautiful. Valparaiso is Paradise Valley, and Gen- nesareth is nearly identical in meaning.® The name of Buenos Ayres describes the delicious climate of Southern Brazil. The Pacific Ocean seems calm to those who have just weathered the tempests of Cape Hoorn. Bungay is probably from the French ® bon gue, fair ford. Palermo, a corruption of Panormus, is the haven sheltered from every wind. The Genoese gave Bala- clava its name of the beautiful quay, hella chiava}^ The name of Bombay is from the Portuguese bona bahia, the good bay, and well describes the harbour, one of the largest, safest, and most beautiful in the world.^^
Cairo is the Anglicised form of the Arabic El Kahirah, the
^ Loudon, Encyclopedia of Plants, p. 38; Gough’s Camden, vol. ii. p. 125.
* Pihan, Glossaire, p. 146.
® See p. 73, supra, * Stanley, Sinai and Pal. p. 260.
® Wilton, Negeb, p. 232. ® Talbot, English Etymologies, p. 451.
’ See p. 359, supra. • Stanley, Sinai and Pal. p. 374.
• The Norman castle of Hugh Bigot accounts for the French name. See Gough’s Camden, vol. ii. p. 157.
Chamock, Local Etymology, p. 24.
See Buckingham, Autobiography, vol. ii. p. 338.
Words and Places
404
“ victorious/’ ^ and the name may be compared with that of Vittoriosa^ a suburb of Valetta which was built at the conclusion of the great siege. The Romans often gave their colonies names of good omen/ as Pax^ Liberalitas, Fidentia, Placentia (now Piacenza), Valentia (now Valance, Valentz, and Valentia), Pollentia (now Polenza), Potentia (now St. Maria Potenza), Florentia (now Firenze or Florence), Vicentia (now Vicenza), Faventia (now Faenza), and the queenly city Basilia (now Basel or Bale.)
Names of bad omen ^ are rare. From the Anglo-Saxon hean, poor, we have Henlow, Hendon, and Henley.'* Pernambuco means the mouth of hell, and Bab-el-Mandeb the gate of the devil.® Malpas is the bad frontier pass.® Dungeness and Cape Pelorus express the terrors of the sailor. Caltrop, Colton, Caldecote, and Cold Harbour, are all cold places, and the name of Mount Algidus may be paralleled by that of Coleridge. A volcano broke out on the ‘‘ most beautiful ” island of Calliste, which caused the name to be changed to Thera, “ the beast.’^ At the time of a subsequent eruption the island was placed under the protection of the Empress St. Irene, whose name it still bears in the form of Santorin.*^
VII. CONFIGURATION
A few names, chiefly those of islands, bays, and mountains, are derived from the configuration of the land. Thus Anguilla is the eel-shaped island. Drepanum, now Trapani, is from a Greek word, meaning a sickle. Zancle, the original name of Messina, is said to be derived from a Siculian root of the same significance. Sicily perhaps comes from a root allied to sica, a sickle, and the name seems to have been first applied to the curved shore near Messina, and then extended to the whole island. Ancona, which preserves its original name unchanged, is built at the place where Monte Conero juts out into the sea and then recedes, forming a sort of bent ‘‘ elbow ” (dyKwv).®
^ The real name of Cairo is Misr; El Kahirah or Cairo is only a title of honour applied to the city, just as Genoa is called “ La Superba,” Verona, “ La Degna,” Mantua, “ La Gloriosa,” Vicenza, “ L’antica,” and Padua,
La Forte.” Fairholt, Up the Nile, p. 42.
^ See Niebuhr, Lectures on, Ethnology and Geogr. vol. ii. p. 291.
^ On names of ill omen, see Grimm, Gesch. d. Dent. Spr. p. 780.
^ Monkhouse, Etymologies, p. 48. ® Pihan, Glossaire, p. 49.
® See p. 1^9, supra. Bremer, Greece, vol. i. p. 329.
* Trollope, Lenten Journey in Umbria, pp. 281, 290.
Onomatology 40 5
The name of Gomphi, near Pindus, expresses the wedge- shaped ” formation of the rocks/ and may be compared with that of the Needles in the Isle of Wight. At Meteora the con- vents are poised ‘‘ aloft in the air ” on the summits of rocky columns.^ The name Trapezus, now Trebizond, on the Black Sea, is identical in meaning with that of Table Mountain at the Cape. The Organ Mountains in Brazil derive their name from the fantastic forms of the spires of rock, resembling the pipes of an organ.^ Phiala, in Palestine, is the ‘‘ bowl.’’ ^ Rhegium is the rent ” between Sicily and Italy. Tempe is the “ cut ” (refAvo)) in the rocks through which the Peneus flows,® and Detroit the ‘‘ narrows,” between Lake Erie and Lake St. Clair.
VIII. COLOUR
The adjectival element in names is frequently derived from colour.® Names of this class are often admirably descriptive. How well, for instance, the Northmen described a conspicuous chalk cliff, past which they steered to Normandy, by the name of Cape Grisnez, or the grey nose. Cape Blancnez, close by, is the white nose. Cape Verde is fringed with green palms.
The local name for the Indus is the Nilab, the blue river; and the name of the Blue Nile is, perhaps, an unconscious reduplica- tion.'^ The Xanthus is the yellow river. The Rio Colorado takes its name from its deep red colour; Ratby, Rugby, and Rutland, from their red soil. Ratcliff e, Bristol, is the red cliff. The Red Sea,® the Black Sea, the Yellow Sea, and the White Sea, are translated names.
The city of Hatria or Adria, from which the Adriatic took its name, is the black town, so called, perhaps, because biiilt on a deposit of black mud.® The Kedron is the black valley.^® From
^ Miiller, Dorians, vol. i. p. 27.
* See Curzon’s Monasteries of Levant ; Muller, Dorians, vol. i. p. 26.
* Hinchcliff, South American Sketches, p. 275.
* Robinson, Later Researches, p. 400.
* Muller, Dorians, vol. i. p. 21.
« Buttmann, Deutschen Ortsnamen, pp. 6, 7.
’ Pott {Indo-Germ. Spr. p. 29) thinks the name of the Nile is only an accidental coincidence with the Sanskrit nila, blue, whence, through the old French neel, we obtain the verb to anneal. Cf. neelah, the Indian name of indigo. See Wilkinson, Ancient Egypt, vol. ii. p. 57.
* Probably a translation of Sea of Edom. Renan, Lang. Semit, p. 39: Knobel, Vblkertafel, p. 135.
* Mommsen, Inhabitants of Italy, p. 46.
Stanley, Sinai and Pal. p. 172.
Words and Places
406
the Celtic dhu, black, we have the names of Dublin, the black pool or linn, and the Douglas, or black water, in Lancashire, Scotland, and the Isle of Man.^ The Rio Negro and the River Melas are also the black rivers. The River Lycus is, as we have seen, the white river, and not the wolf river.^ The Hvita, a common Norse river-name, is the white water. Names like Blackheath, Blackmore, Blakeley, or Blackdown, are very ambiguous, as they may be either from the English black, or from the Norse hlakka, which means white.^ From the Sclavonic bel, white, we have Belgrade and Bolgrad, the “ white castles,’’ ^ and scores of names in eastern Germany, such as Biela, Bielawa, Beelow, Bilau, and Billow.® From the Wendish zarny, black, we have Samow, Same, and many other names: from seleny, green, come Zielonka, Zelenetz, etc.; and so on through the whole range of the spectrum.®
The names of mountains are naturally derived in many cases from their prevailing hue. Thus we have the Nilgherries, or the “ blue hills ” of India, the Blue Ridge of Virginia, and the Blue Mountains of New South Wales and Jamaica. From the Gadhelic gortn, blue, we have Bengorm in Mayo, and the Cairn- gorm group in the Highlands.^ Roger Williams tells us that the name Massachusetts is an Indian word, meaning the blue hills.® The hills of Vermont are clothed to the summit with green forests, while the Sierra Morena of Spain is the ‘‘ sombre range,” ® and the Sierra Vermeja is the ‘‘ red range.” From the Welsh coch, red, we have Crib Goch, the name of the striking peak which overhangs the pass of Llanberis,^^ while Monte Rossi, one of the peaks of Etna, and Monte Rosso, an outlier of the Bernina, are so called from their characteristic russet or rosy hue.^^
A very large number of the loftiest mountains in the world derive their names from their white coverings of snow. From
^ See Diefenbach, Celtica, i. p. 139.
* See p. 350, supra.
3 Cf. the English verb to bleach or make white, the German bleich, pale, and the French blanc. Some of these names may be from the Celtic blaighe, a hill. See Hartshorne, Salopia Antiqua, p. 243.
* Cf. the Turkish Ak-kerman, white castle.
® Buttmann, Deutschen Orisnamen, p. 79; Zeuss, Die DaUschen, p. 613.
* Buttmann, Orisnamen, pp. 80, 81.
’ Gibson, Etym. Geogr. p. 133.
* Drake, Book of the Indians, book ii. p. 18.
* Root, mofus.
Prescott, Ferdinand and Is. vol. ii. p. 387.
Cf. the Latin coccinus. The cock is the “ red ** bird. Diefenbadi, Celtica, vol. i. p. 61.
See p. 172, supra.
Onomatology 407
the Sanskrit hima^ snow, and dlaja? an abode, we have the name of the majestic Himalaja, the perpetual “ abode of snow.” ® Himaprastha is the snowy head, Himawat is the snow-covered, and the names of the Haemus and the Imaus are from the same root. Dwajalagiri is the “ white mountain,” and Cvetaghara, the second highest peak of Dwajalagiri, is the white castle.^ The Akhtag in Bokhara are the white mountains, and from the Hebrew lahan, white, we deduce the name of Lebanon.® The hoary head of Djebel esh Sheikh,® the chief summit of the Lebanon, is covered with snow even during a Syrian summer. Graucasus,^ the old Scythian word from which we derive the name of the Caucasus, means nive candidus, as we are told by Pliny. The Mustagh are the ice mountains.® The name of the Apennines has been explained by a reference to the Welsh y-pen-ghwifiy the white head.® The Bielouka, the giant of the Altai, is the white mountain; and a range in China is called Siu^-ling, or the snow mountain. More obvious are the etymologies of Mont Blanc, the Sierra Nevada in Spain, the Nevado in Mexico, Ben Nevis in Scotland, Snowdon in Wales,
^ Cf. the Latin hiems, winter, and the Greek snow.
* Cognate with the verbs to lie, and lay, and the common English suffix ley. ^e p. 326, supra.
* Lassen, Ind. AUerth. vol. i. p. 17; Curtius, Grundzilge, vol. i. p. 169; Charnock, Local Etymol. p. 131; Welsford, English Language, p. 22; Cooley, Hist. Discov. vol. i. p. 42; Pott, Etymologischen Forschungen, p. Ixxiv. ; Pictet, Orig. Indo-Europ. part i. p. 90.
* Lassen, Ind. AUerth. vol. i. p. 55.
® See Robinson, Bihl. Researches, vol. iii. p. 439 ; Stanley, Sinai and Pal. p. 403; Charnock, Local Etym. p. 154.
« This Arabic word seems to have been adopted from the Persian shah, a king. The name of Xerxes (Khshayoarsha) is the “ venerable king; ” that of Artaxerxes is the “ great venerable king.” The English ramifi- cations of this root are curious to trace. We received the game of chess from the Persians through the Arabs. The name of the game is a corrup- tion of shah or sheikh. We cry check (king), to give notice that the king is attacked; checkmate means “ the king is dead.” The verb t»a^a=he is dead, we have in the name of the Spanish matador, who kills th^e bull. The word checkered describes the appearance of the board on which the game is played. In the Court of Exchequer the public accounts were kept by means of tallies placed on the squares of a chequered cloth. Hence the phrase to check an account, and the other uses of the verb to check. See Forbes, History of Chess, pp. 207, 208; Schafarik, Slaw. AUerth. vol. i. p. 283; Yonge, Christian Names, vol. i. p. 133; Menage, Origines, pp. 279-286, 702.
’ Evidently from the Sanskrit grdva-kasas. The former part of the name seems to be related to the Greek Kpitos, and the latter to the Latin castus. See Grimm, Gesch. d. Deut. Spr. p. 234; Pictet, Orig. Indo-Europ. part i. p. 73; Donaldson, Varronianus, p. 53.
* Lassen, Ind. AUerth. vol. i. p. 16.
* Keferstein, KeU. AUerth. vol. ii. p. 186; Morris, in Gentleman* s Mag. for 1789, p. 905. Cf. Church of England Quarterly, No. 73, p. 148.
Words and Places
408
Sneehattan in Norway, and Sneeuwbergen in the Cape Colony, two Snafells in Iceland, Sneefell in the Isle of Man ; Schneekoppe, the highest peak of the Riesen Gebirge; Sneeberg, Sneekopf, and the Eisthaler Spitze, in the Carpathians; and the Weiss- horn, Weissmies, Dent Blanche, and many other peaks in Switzerland.^ The names of the Swiss mountains are often admirably picturesque and descriptive.^ How well do the words. Dent, Horn, and Aiguille describe the rocky teeth, spires, and pinnacles of rock which shoot up into the clouds. How appropriate, too, are the names of the Schreckhom, or
Peak of Terror; ” the Wetterhom, or ‘‘ Peak of Storms,” which gather round his head and reverberate from his fearful precipices; the Eigher, who uprears his “giant” head; the Monch, with his smooth-shaven crown; the Jungfrau, or “ Maiden,” clad in a low descending vesture of spotless white; the glittering Silberhom; the soft disintegrating rock of the ill-conditioned Faulhom; the Dent du Midi, or “ the Peak of Noon,” over whose riven summits the midday sun streams down the long Rhone valley to the lake. Pilatus, the outlier of the Bernese chain, takes his name from the “ cap ” of cloud which he wears during western winds. On the other hand, the Matterhorn, the most marvellous obelisk of rock which the world contains, takes its name, not from its cloud-piercing peak, but from the scanty patches of green meadow which hang around its base; and which also give their name to Zer- matt— ^the village “ on the meadow.” ^
The root alp, or alb, is widely diffused throughout the Aryan languages. The Gaelic and Welsh word, alp, means a height, a hill, or a craggy rock.^ Alp, Owen says, is common in Glamorganshire as a name of hills. It is, no doubt, connected with the root of albus,^ though in Switzerland the Alps are now the green pasturages between the forests and the snow line.® Albania, as seen from Corfu, appears as a long snowy range. We may refer the name Albion to the same root ; it may have been bestowed on the land lying behind the white cliffs visible
^ See p. 22, supra.
2 See Stanley, Sinai and Pal. p. 18.
® Cf. Andermat.
Alj high, is common in Shropshire names, e.g. Ercal, [Shiffnal, Peck- nail, etc.; Hartshome, Sal. Ant. p. 240.
® On this root in river-names, see p. 166, supra. The elves are the white beings.
® The Alps, as well as the Albis in Zurich, seem to have received their names before the meaning of the root was thus restricted. See Meyer, Ortsfiamen, p. 81.
Onomatology 409
from the coast of Gaul. Albany (Duke of Albany)^ the old name of Scotland, means probably the hilly land.^
The name of the Pyrenees is probably from the Basque word pyrge, high ; ^ that of the Ural is from a Tatarian word meaning a belt or girdle.^ The name of the Carpathians comes, we have seen, from the Sclavonic gora, a mountain, or chrhat, a mountain range Hor means the mountain;® Pisgah is the height;® Sion is the upraised; Hermon, the lofty peak;^ Gibeah, the hill; ® and Samos, the lofty.®
^ On the root cUp, see Pott, Etym. Forsch. vol. ii. p. 525 ; Latham, Ger- mania, p. 18; Diefenbach, Celtica, i. p. 19; Orig. Europ. p. 224; Owen, Welsh Dictionary, s. v. alp ; Davies, Celtic Researches, p. 207; De Bel- loguet, Ethnog. vol. i. p. 96; Duncker, Orig. Germ. p. 44; Adelung, Mithridates, vol. ii. p. 43; Arndt, Europ. Spr. pp. 241, 242; Radlof, Neue Untersuch. p. 287; Sparschuh, Berichtigungen, p. 28.
^ Arndt, Europ. Spr. p. 233. Cf. the Zend pur, a mountain.
® Muller, Ugrische Volkstamm, vol. i. p. 18.
* See p. 76, supra ; Knobel, Volkertafel, p. 44.
® Compare the Sclavonic gora, and the Greek 6pos, Stanley, Sinai and Pal. p. 494.
* Ibid. p. 496.
’ Ibid. p. 403.
« Ibid. pp. 41, 497.
* Curtius, Die lonier, p. 28.
410
Words and Places
LIST OF SOME OF THE CHIEF SUBSTANTIVAL COMPONENTS OF LOCAL NAMES
I. NAMES OF MOUNTAINS AND HILLS
) a head, hence a mountain. E.g. Pennigant, Ben Nevis, al^rbadhelic; Kenmore, Kent, Cantal. pp. x68. xep!
BRYN, Welsh; a brow, hence a ridge. E.g. Brandon. p. 172.
DRUM, from the Erse druim, a back or ridge. E.g. Dromore, Dundrum. CKFN, Cymric; a back, hence a ridge. E.g. Les Cevennes. p. 168.
ARD, Celtic; a height. E.g. Ardrossan. p. 173.
TOR, Celtic; a tower-like rock. E.g. Mam Tor. pp. 76, 173, 302.
PEAK, J^ngland;
allied to the words beak, spike, spit, etc. Spithead is at the end of a long spit of sand. E.g. Peak of Derbyshire, Pike o’Stickle, Pic du Midi, Beca di Nona, Piz Mortiratsch, Oertler Spitz, Spitzbergen, Puy de Cantal.
PIKE, England;
PIC, Pyrenees;
BEC, Piedmont;
PIZ, Eastern Switzerland; SPITZ, Germany;
PUY, Auverne;
GEBEL, Arabic; a mountain.
E.g. Gibraltar, Gebel Mousa.
p. 87.
BARROW, BOROUGH, <1 BERG,
Anglo-Saxon beorh, a hill. Liable to be confused with names
from hurh, an earthwork. Common in Germany, rare in England. E.g. Spitzbergen, Erzberg, Ingleborough in Yorkshire, Brownberg Hill in Westmoreland, Queensberry in Dumfriesshire, p. 103. Leo, Rectiiudines, p. 65 ; Codex Dipl. vol. iii. p. xviii,
GORA, Sclavonic; a mountain. E.g. Gorlitz, Carpathians. p. 76.
CARRiCK, Ireland ;\
CRAIG, Wales; I Gadhelic carraig, Cymric craig^ a rock or crag. CRICK, England; f E.g. Craigruigh, Carrickfergus, Cricklade. p. 172. CRAU, Savoy ; /
CHLUM, Sclavonic; an isolated hill. There are forty-seven places in Bohemia alone which go by this name, or by its diminutive Chlumetz.
Buttmann, Ortsnamen, p. 76. DAGH or TAGH, Tiurkish; a mountain. E.g. Altai, Agridagh, Belurtagh (the cloud mountains), Mustagh (the ice mountains). Lassen, Indische AUerth. vol. i. p. 16.
TELL, Arabic; a heap, a small hill. Stanley, Sinai and Pal. p. 119.
LOW, England; \ Anglo-Saxon hlaw, a mound, a rising ground. E.g. LAW, Scotch border;) Houndslow, Ludlow, Marlow, Broadlaw. p. 164.
f Norse haugr, a mound. Old High German houc, of which the German hiigel is a dimi- nutive. E.g. Fox How, Silver How. Fer- guson, Northmen, pp. 54-56; Forstemann, Ortsnamen, p. 42. p. 138.
HILL, Anglo-Saxon hyl, Norse holl. Leo, Anglo-Saxon Names, p. 73. KNOTT, a small round hill. E.g. Ling Knott, Amside Knott.
KOM, Arabic; a high mound.
HOW, Lake District ; 1
HAUGH, Northumberland; ]
E.g. Slievh Beg.
p. 188.
Onomatology
411
p. I2&.
f FELL, Norse fjeld ; a hill-side. E.g. Goatfell in Arran.
( PELS, German ; a rock. E.g. Drachenfels.
HAGAR, Arabic; a stone. p. 83.
KAMEN, Sclavonic; a stone.
I Anglo-Saxon sian, a stone. Old German stain.
S^N, NethSds; i Ehrenbreitstein, Brunsteen.
DUN, Celto-Saxon; a hill fort. E.g. London, Dunstable. pp. 170-180.
HERMON, Hebrew; lofty.
SION, Hebrew; upraised.
I ^ back or ridge. Anglo-Saxon hrycg ; German rilcken, a back ;
RiGGE ) English nc^-yard. E.g. Reigate, Rugeley, Rudge.
SIERRA, Arabic. Not, as is usually supposed, from the Latin serra, a saw, but from the Arabic sehrah, an imcultivated tract. E,g. Sierra Nevada. Gayangos, Dynasties, vol. i. p. 546.
CORDILLERA, Spanish ; a chain.
HORN, German; a peak. E.g. Matterhorn, Schreckhom, Finsteraarhorn, Wetterhorn.
DODi\ Lake District; a mountain with a round summit. E.g. Dodd Fell, Great Dodd.
MONADH, Gaelic; \ a bald head. E.g. Monadh liadh, Inverness.
MYNYDD, Welsh; I Mynydd-Mawr, Carnarvonshire.
f MULL, Scotland; Gaelic moot ; a headland. E.g. Mull of Cantyre.
1 MOEL, Wales; a round hill. E.g. Moel Siabod.
ROG, Sclavonic; a horn. Buttmann, Ortsnamen, p. 61.
DENT, French ; a tooth. E.g. Dent du Midi.
BLUFF, American. A bluff, as distinguished from a hill, is the escarpment formed by a river running through a table-land.
MONT, France; 1 a mountain. Latin mons. E.g. Mont Blanc, Mont-
MONTE, Italy; / martre, Monte Rosa.
KNOCK, Gadhelic; a hill. E.g. Knocknows, Knockduff.
BALM, Celtic; an overhanging wall of rock; a cave: not uncommon in Switzerland and France. E.g. Col de Balm. Meyer, Ortsnamen, p. 81; Adelung, Mithridates, vol. ii. p. 45; Diefenbach, Celtica, i. p. 192.
SCAR, Norse; a cliff. E.g. Scarborough. p. 130.
GOURNA, Arabic; a mountain promontory.
NESS, Norse; a nose or headland. E.g. Wrabness, Sheerness. p. 130.
Hoo, England; Anglo-Saxon ho. A hoo or heal is a spit of land running into the sea. Codex Diplom. vol. iii. p. xxxi.
RAS, Arabic; a cape. p. 88.
ROSS, Celtic; a promontory. E.g. Rossberg, Kinross, Roseneath, Melrose, Ross. p. 172.
II. PLAINS
GWENT, Celtic; a plain. E.g. Winchester. p. i77.
CLON, Ireland; from the Erse cluain, a plain surroimded by bog or water. E.g. Clonmel, Cloyne. It occurs four times in Shropshire. E.g. Clunn, Clunbury.
PLUN, Sclavonic; \ a plain. E.g. Ploner See, in Holstein.
PLON, Sclavonic; f Buttmann, Ortsnamen, p. 79.
LAN, Celtic; \ ^
LAND, English; ; ® P-
DOL, Celtic; a plain. E.g. Toulouse, Dolberry. p. 272.
BLAIR, Gadhelic; a plain clear of wood. E.g. Blair Atholl.
SHARON, Hebrew; a plain.
Words and Places
412
TiR, Welsh; land. E.g. Cantire. p. 159.
BELED, Arabic; a district.
GAU, Teutonic; a district. Cf. the Greek yvla. E.g. Spengay in Cam- bridgeshire, Wormegay in Norfolk. Pictet, Orig. Indo-Europ. part ii. pp. is, 505. PP. 100-199.
MAN, Celtic; a district. E.g. Maine, Manchester. p. 176.
MAT, Swiss; \
MAES, Welsh; I a field. E.g. Andermat, Masham, Armagh, Maynooth,
MAGH, Erse; j Marmagen. pp. 177- 179.
MAG, Gaulish; /
iNG, Anglo-Saxon; a meadow. E.g. Deeping. p. no.
SAVANNAH, Spanish, a meadow.
AGH, Ireland; 1 from Erse achadh, a field. E.g. Ardagh, Auchinleek.
AUCH, Scotland; j See Sullivan, Diet, of Derivations ^ p. 282.
AC, sometimes a corruption of agh ; sometimes of the Celtic ach or axe, water; sometimes of the Teutonic aha or ahi ; more often the Celtic derivative particle. Nine out of ten of the village-names of Western and Central France exhibit this derivative suf&x. See Zeuss, Gramm. Celt. vol. ii. p. 771 ; Forstemann, Ortsnamen, p. 29.
III. FORESTS
HURST, England; 1 thick HORST, Germany; j HART, Germany; 1
~ ■ i; r
) a copse. E.g. Bagshot, Sparsholt. p. 325. Codex. 1; I Dipl. vol. iii. p. xxxii.
HOLz, German;
HOLT, Anglo-Saxon;
wood. Anglo-Saxon hyrst. E.g. Lyndhurst, Penshurst. Ingram, Sax. Chron. p. 427. p. 326.
CHART, England; / Seal Chart. p. 326.
BOR, Sclavonic; a forest. E.g. Bohrau. Buttmann, Ortsnamen, p. 83.
DROWO, Sclavonic ; a wood. E.g. Drewitz.
GOLA, Sclavonic; a wood. E.g. Gollwitz.
1 woodland; related to holt. Anglo-Saxon wudu, I and weaU; Old High Genian, wii». E.g. I Waltham, Walden, The Cotswolds, Wootton, Schwarzwald, Emswoude. pp. rx4. 326.
COED, Welsh; a wood. E.g. Bettws y Coed, Cotswold Hills, Catlow. p. 327.
^ open place in a wood. Anglo-Saxon leah. E.g.
LooBelm^’l Leighton, Hadleigh; Waterloo, Venloo. pp. 290, 326;
LOO, i^eigium, ^ Rectitudines, p. 86; Morris, Local Names, p. 46.
DEN, Celto-Saxon; a deep wooded valley. Den and dun are from the same root, but the meanings are converse, like those of dike and ditch.
MONEY, Ireland; from Erse muine, a brake or shaw. E.g. Monewea, Moneymore.
ACRE, a field. Latin ager. Low Latin acra. E.g. Longacre.
SHAW, England; a shady place, a wood. Anglo-Saxon sceaga ; Norse skogr. E.g. Bagshaw. Liable to be confused with haw. pp. 147, 325.
HAW, German gehaw, a place where the trees have been hewn. Nearly the same as field. See Vilmar, Ortsnamen, p. 265; Forstemann, Orts- namen, p. 79. Cf. Leo, Anglo-Saxon Names, p. 115.
FIELD, Anglo-Saxon feld, a forest clearing, where the trees have been felled. E.g. Sheffield, Enfield. pp. 128, 326.
ROYD, Teutonic. Probably land that has been ridded of trees. Low Latin terra rodata. E.g. Huntroyd, Holroyd, Ormeroyd. Names in rod, rode, or roth are very common in Hesse; liable to be confused with rithe, running water, and rhyd, a ford, q.v. See Forstemann, Ortsnamen, p. 79; Vilmar, Ortsnamen, pp. 278, 279; Charnock, Local Etymol. p. 229,
Onomatology 413
LUND, Norse; a sacred grove. E.g. Lundgarth. p. 306.
NEMET, Ceitic; a sacred grove. E.g. Nismes, Nymet Rowland. p. 305.
IV. VALLEYS
' NANT, Cymric; a valley. E.g. Nant-frangon. p. 176.
glen' Gaei^* } ^ ^^t^row valley. E.g. Glynneath, Glencoe.
STRATH, Gaelic; a broad valley. E.g. Strathclyde, Stratherne.
a valley. E.g. Lonsdale*, Arundel, Frankenthal. Names in dol are very common in Bohemia and Moravia, p. 128. Buttmann, Ortsnamen, P- 79*
Arabic wadi^ a ravine, valley, or river. E.g. Guadal- GUAD, Spain;/ quiver. pp. 89, 92.
COMBE, Celto-Saxon; \ a bowl-shaped valley. E.g. Wycomt^, Cwm cwM, Welsh; / Bechan. P- i73-
KOTL, Sclavonic; a kettle or combe. Buttmann, Ortsnamen, p. 79.
COP, Celtic; a hollow or cup. E.g. Warcop.
DEN, from Celto-Saxon denu, a deep-wooded valley. E.g. Tenterden.
pp. 326, 173.
GILL, Lake District ; a ravine. E.g. Aygill.
THAL, German;
DALE, Northumbrian; DELL, Southumbrian; DOL, Sclavonic;
VYED, Malta; 1 .
ain; |
V. RIVERS AND WATERS
A, Anglo-Saxon ea ; Norse a ; Old High German aha ; Gothic ahva, water. Cognate with Latin aqua. E.g. Greta, Werra. p. 137.
AVON, Celtic; a river. p. 153.
DWR, Cymric; water. p. 155.
ESK, Celtic; water. p. 157,
BURN, Anglo-Saxon;'!
BRUNNEN, German; [■ a stream. E.g. Blackburn, Tyburn, Hachbom. BORN, in Hesse; j
BROOK, from Anglo-Saxon 6rdc, a rushing stream.
a small stream. E.g. Welbeck, Holbeck, Caudebec. There are fifty names in hatch in Shropshire, as Comberbatch, Coldbatch, and Snailbatch \i.e. Schnell-bach). pp. 128, 147; Hartshorne, Antiqua^ p. 240; Notes and Queries, vol. i. p. 267. REKA, Sclavonic; river. E.g. River Regen.
woDA, Sclavonic; water. E.g. River Oder. Buttmann, Ortsnamen, p. 114.
RUN, Anglo-American; a brook. E.g. Bull’s Run.
CREEK, Anglo-American; a small river. E.g. Salt Creek. p. 37.
FORK, Anglo-American; a large affluent. E.g. North Fork.
PARA, Brazilian; a river. E.g. Parahiba, Paraguay, Parana, Paranybuna. RiTHE, Anglo-Saxon; running water. E.g. Meldrith, Shepreth, etc., in Cambridgeshire. See royd, p. 412, supra.
F0ss,^icdand|^”^^ } ^ waterfall. E.g. Airy Force, Skogar Foss. p. 128.
P-TKRT PncrlanH- / Anglo-Saxon ileot, a flowing stream. E.g. North- FLEET, ^ngiana, j Byfleet, Harfleur. See pp. 147, 266. Leo,
BECK, Northumbria; 1 BACH, Germany; J
BATCH, Mercia; ]
BEC, Normandy; |
FLEUR, Normandy; VLEY, Cape;
i
Rectitudines , p. 81; Ingram, Sax. Chron. p. 426; Forstemann, Ortsnamen, p. 36.
GANGA, India; a river. In Ceylon most of the river-names terminate in ganga. The Ganges is the river.
BiRKET, Arabic; a lake.
4H
Words and Places
LINN, Celtic; a deep pool. E.g. Lincoln, Linlithgow, Dublin, Lynn. p. i66.
VAT, Hebrides; a small lake. Norse va^n, water. £.g. Ollevat. p. 136.
TARN, Lake District; a small mountain lake, lying like a tear on the face of the hill. Norse tiorn, a tear. E.g. Blentarn.
T* ^ place whence water flows forth. Cf. the Welland,
AIN, Arabic; a fountain. E.g. Engedi, the foimtain of the kid; Enrogel, the fountain of the foot. pp. 89, 96.
HAMMAN, Turkish; hot springs.
BEER, Hebrew;) a well. E.g. Beersheba, Beyrout. Dr. Stanley says it
BiR, Arabic; J is something bored. Situii and Pal. pp. 147, 512. p. 89.
BAHR, Arabic; a canal.
BALA, Welsh ; efiiuence of a river from a lake.
ABER, Welsh ; ) a confluence of two rivers, or of a river and the sea.
INVER, Gadhelic; j E.g. Abergavenny, Inverness. p. 187.
coNDATE, Old Celtic; confluence of two rivers. E.g. Cond6, Ghent. Zeuss, Gram. Celt. p. 994; Adelung, Mithridates, vcd. ii. p. 54.
WICK, Norse; a bay. E.g. Sandwich. p. 129.
FORD, England; ) Norse fiord, an arm of the sea. E.g. Orford, Haverford,
FJORD, Iceland;) Faxa Fjord. pp. 128, 129.
OVER, Anglo-Saxon ofer ; German ufer ; a shore. E.g. Hanover, Overyssel, Over near Cambridge, Wendover. Andover is not from the root ofer, but waere. See Sax. Chron. ; Cod. Dipl. vol. iii. p. xxxiv; Morris, Local Names, p. 38, Fdrstemann, Orisnamen, p. 39. p. 113.
POOL,) Welsh pwl, an^ inlet, or pool. E.g. Pill in Somerset, Poole in
PILL, I Dorset, Bradpole, Pwllheli, Liverpool.
SHORE, e.g. Shoreham.
OR, Anglo-Saxon ora, the shore of a river or sea. E.g. Bognor, Cumnor, Oare near Hastings, Elsinore. Windsor was anciently Windlesora, the winding shore. Ore in Iceland denotes a narrow strip of land between two waters. Leo, Rectitudines, p. 79 ; Laing, Heimskringla, vol. i. p. 1 19; Ingram, Sax. Chron. p. 428; Charnock, Local Etymol. p. 298,
TRA, Erse; a strand. E.g. Tralee, Ballintra.
MERE, Anglo-Saxon;) a lake, a marsh. E.g. Foulmire, Mersey, Morton,
MOOR, Anglo-Saxoii; j Blackmore.
JASOR, Sclavonic; a marsh. Buttmann, Ortsnamen, p. 107.
RUiMNE, Celtic; a marsh. E.g. Romney. pp. 165, 318.
RHOS, Celtic; a moor, E.g. Rossall, Rusholme. p. 172.
VI. ISLANDS
an island. E.g. Inchiquin and Inchkeith in Scotland; Enniskillen, Ennismore, Ennis, and at least 100 names in Ireland, as well, perhaps, as Erin and Albion.
From the Anglo-Saxon ea, Norse oe. Eyot is the diminutive of ey, and ait the contraction of eyot. E.g. Ey in Sufiolk, Sheppey, Rona, Faroe, Colonsay. pp. 130, 135, 317.
E.g. Saltaire, Stonaire.
YNYS, Welsh; iNNis, Gadhelic;
ENNIS, Irish;
INCH, Scotch;
'j an island.
OE,
AY,
AIRE, \
AYRE, y a small river-island of shingle or sand.
EYRE, j
HOLM, Norse; an island in a river. E.g. Flatholm in the Severn, p. 130. JEZIRAH, Arabic; an island. E.g. Algiers, Algeziras. p. 90.
Onomatology
415
VII. ROADS, BRIDGES, FORDS
passage, a road or street. Ramsgate, Calcutta.
£.g. Reigate, Gattoa, pp. 191, 307.
p. 192.
GATE, England;
GUT, Kent;
GHAT, India;
GHAUT, India;
ATH, Erse; a ford. E.g. Athlone.
RHYD, Welsh ; a ford.
WATH, Northumbria; a ford. Related to the verb to wade.
^ T? 1 /I . ( Oxford, Frankfurt, Lemforde. p. 192. Butt-
L J mann, Ortsnamen, p. 17; Bender, Ortsnamen^
fSrde’ 1 P- I“gram, Saxon Chron. p. 426; Forstemaim,
FORDE, Hanover, Ortsnamen, p. 38.
PONT, Welsh and French; a bridge. E.g. Pontaberglaslyn. pp. 191-193. MOST, Sclavonic; a bridge. E.g. Babimost, Motzeii, Maust. Buttmann, Ortsnamen, p. 135.
BRIDCE Fnriand- ( Brixton, Bruges, Innspruck, Weybridge. See BROcKE’,S^y;{ P' “9: Ingram, Sax.
BRivA, Old Celtic; a bridge. p. 193.
BAB, Arabic; a gate. E.g. Babelmandeb.
STREET, Latin and Saxon; a road. E.g. Stretton, Stratford. p. 190. SARN, Welsh; a road. E.g. Sarn Helen.
VIII. BOUNDARIES
TWiSTLE, Northumbria; a boundary. E.g. Entwistle, Birchtwistle, Extwistle. Whitaker, History of Whalley, p. 377.
GILL, Northumbria; Norse gil, a ravine. E.g. Dungeon Gill.
STONE, Anglo-Saxon and Norse stan. E.g. Stanton, Godstone. Staines is so called from the Stones bounding the river jurisdiction of the Lord Mayor.
KAMEN, Sclavonic, a stone. E.g. Chemnitz. Buttmann, Ortsnamen, pp. 61, 103.
HAGAR, Arabic; a stone,
GiSR, Arabic; a dyke.
DYKE, Anglo-Saxon; a ditch. E.g. Wansdyke. p. 194.
HATCH, England; a hitch-gdite. Cf. the French hiche. This is a common suf&x in the neighbourhood of ancient forests. E.g. Westhatch in Somerset, Pilgrims* Hatch in Essex; Colney Hatch in Middlesex was the gate at the southern extremity of Enfield Chase. See Notes and Queries, vol. x. pp. 107, 197, 238, 316.
CLOUGH, Erse clock, a stone. E.g. Cloghan, Claughton in Yorkshire.
MARK, Indo-European; a boundary. E.g. Denmark, Altmark. p. 199.
IX. HABITATIONS AND INCLOSURES
HEIM, Germany ;\
HAM, England; I a home. E.g. Hocheim, Buckingham, Rysum, Ham- HEN, Picardy; [ burg. pp. 103, 104, 123.
UM, Friesland; /
TON, Anglo-Saxon tun, an inclosure. Hence a village, pp. loo, loi.
( WICK, Anglo-Saxon vie, an abode. Related to the Latin vicus. p. 129. •j WAS, Sclavonic; a village. E.g. Weska, Wasowetz. Buttmann, V Ortsnamen, p. 145.
WIKI, Sclavonic; a market. E.g. Fourteen places called Wieck. Butt- mann, Ortsnamen, p. 139.
Words and Places
416
an abode, a house. E.g. Berweiler, Hardivilliers, Haconville, Chiswill, Kettlewell.
pp. 128, 145, 146.
abode. E.g,
Derby, Elboeuf, pp. 126, 146.
» lT7n<yiaTiH • \ -^^S^^Saxon and Norse boU, a house, from j & I bytlian, to build. Rare in Anglo-Saxon names.
WEiLER, Germany; viLLiERS, France; viLLE, Normandy;
s, )*•«'“■»-
BALLY, \ Gadhelic batle, an abode. Equivalent to the Cymric and the BAL, !• Norse by. E.g. Ballymena, Balbriggan. p. 188; Sullivan, BALLA, j Diet, of Der. p. 283. r ABAD, India; an abode. E.g. Allahabad.
■ BY, England; |
J.’ I Amelsbuien.
BUREN, Germany; '
BOTTLE, bold,
BUTTEL, Germany; ^ E.g. Newbottle, Wolfenbiittel, Bothwell. Cod. BLOD, Friesland; ) Dip/, vol. iii. p. xviii; Bender, Ortenamm, p. 132. BUS, Sclavonic; a dwelling. Bus is very common in Sclavonic districts.
E.g. Trebus, Lebbus, Putbus. Buttmann, Ortsnamen, p. 130. BUDA, Sclavonic; a hut. E.g. Buda, Budin, Budan, Budkowitz. Buttmann, Orisnamen, p. 129.
^ BOS ’ } ^ house. E.g. Bodmin, Bodwrog, Boscawen. p. 175.
STAN, Persian; a place. E.g. Kurdistan, Hindostan, Beloochistan, Afghanistan.
STEAD, England; \ Anglo-Saxon stede, a place. E.g. Hampstead, Darm- STADT, Germany ; j stadt.
{ Anglo-Saxon stoCy a stockaded place. E.g. Bristow or Bristol, STOKE, J Chepstow, Tavistock, Stockholm, p. 102; Ingram, C/zzow.
( p. 428.
r SET, from Anglo-Saxon seta^ a settlement. E.g. Dorset. ' p. 66.
j SETER, Norse;) a seat or dwelling. E.g. Ellanseter, Seatollar, Ulster. ■i STER, Norse; j pp. 135, i43-
1 SSEDLO, Sclavonic; a possession. E.g. Sedlitz. Buttmann, Ortsnamen,
p. 144.
PAT AM, India; a city. E.g. Patra, Seringapatam.
HAGEN, Germany;'! a place surrounded by a hedge; a park. E.g. HAY, Hagendorn, La Haye Sainte. p. 102. Bender,
HAiGH, ; ^^g^ana, j Ortsnamen y p. 128.
PARK, Celto-Saxon. p. 102. Diefenbach, CelticUy i. p. 146.
TRE, Cymric; a village. E.g. Tredegar, Treves. p. 174.
house. E.g. the portage at the falls of the Rhine is SchafEhausen, “ at the ship-houses.*' The dative plural hausen is the commonest suf&x in German names. Fbrstemann, Orts- nameity p. 84; Vilmar, Ortsnameny pp. 264, 273.
P. 175.
E.g. Jaschen, Jaschwitz. Buttmann, Orts-
HOUSE, England ; I
1 Germany;J
HAUSEN, j
Huus, Norway; ]
TY, Welsh; a house. jAZA, Sclavonic; a house.
'nameny p. 131.
DOM, Sclavonic; a house.
i BETH, Hebrew; a house. E.g. Bethany (house of dates), Bethlehem j (house of bread), Bethsaida (house of fish). Bethel (house of God),
I Bethharon (house of caves), Bethphage (house of figs).
COTE, Anglo-Saxon; a mud cottage. Coton is the plural of cote. E.g.
Fosscot, Coton Hill in Shropshire. p. 328.
SELL, Anglo-Saxon; a cottage, a little superior to cote. Leo, Anglo-Sax. Names, p. 54.
HALL Anslo-Saxon- f* house. E.g. Coggeshall, Mildenhall,
Lll.’ AJ^fi^stxon; Kensal, WalsaU. Leo, Anglo-Saxon Names. ’ “ ’ PP- 52, 54-
Onomatology
417
CLERE, Anglo-Norman; a royal or episcopal residence on a lofty hill. Almost the only Anglo-Norman sufi&x. E.g. Highclere, Burghclere^ Kingsclere. See Notes and Queries^ vol. i. p. 400.
SCALE, Norse; a shepherd’s hut. Cf. the Scotch, a shealing. Q.g. Portin- scale, Scalloway. p. 28i,
fold, Anglo-Saxon; an inclosure made of felled trees. p. 102.
WORTH, Anglo-Saxon and German; an inclosure. E.g. Tam worth, Konigsworth. p. 102. Leo, Rectitudines ^ p. 52.
GADiR, Phoenician; an inclosure. £.g. Cadiz. p. 84.
CARTHA, Phoenician; an inclosed place, a city. E.g. Carthage. p. 83. GARTH, Norse; \ an inclosed place. E.g. Fishguard, Applegarth. YARD, Anglo-Saxon;) pp. loi, 128, 146. Bender, Ortsnamen, p. 134. GOROD, Russian; \ . r related to gora a mountain, jus^
u . . . » j. a burgh ; | is related to herg. E.g. Gratz in St5u:ia,
^ ^ Konigsgratz in Bohemia, Novgorod (new*
GROD, Polish; ;
GRATZ, Sclavonic; a town; ] HRAD, Bohemian; a castle;
town), Belgrade (white castle), Stargard (Aldborough). p. 102.
from the Anglo-Saxon hurh, buruh, and byrig^ an earth- work, hence a fortified town. Related to the Celtic briga and the Sclavonic gorod. See pp. 103, 195, supra. Bender, Ortsnamen^ p. 135; Leo, Reciitudines ^ p. 34; Ingram, Sax. Chron. p. 425.
BARROW,
BURG,
BOROUGH, \
BURY,
BURGH,
BROUGH,
rFJ^FrMfrHan:lfr°“ ‘I'® ^atin casira. E.g. Winchester, Leicester,
cIs?er: ingUaS:! PP- ^96, 197.
1 either related to the preceding, or to the Erse cathair, KER,Brelonec;j a fortress. E.g. Caermarthen, Carlisle. p. 197.
DON, Celto-Saxon; a hill fort. E.g. London, Dunmow. p. 170.
LIS, Gadhelic; an earthen fort; equivalent to bury. E.g. Lismore, Listowel, and 300 names in Ireland.
RATH, Erse; an earthen fort, or mound. E.g. Rathboyne, Rathlin. See Sullivan, Diet, of Deriv. p. 293.
KASR, Arabic; a fort.
KALAT, Arabic; a castle. E.g. Calatagirone, Alcala. See pp. 88, 93..
PEEL, Celtic; a stronghold.
ciui^AD ^Sp^ain* } civitas. E.g. Civita Vecchia, Ciudad Rodrigo.
MEDINA, Arabic; a chief city. E.g. Medina Sidonia. p. 92.
POOR, India; a city; Sanskrit pura, related to ttoKls. E.g. Singapoor. POLis, Greek; a city. E.g. Constantinople, Grenoble, Naples. P- 34i- BENI, Arabic; sons of. Common prefix to the names of Arab villages.
E.g. Benihassan. p. 93; Wilton, Negeb, p. 140.
IKG, England; 1 j
INGEN, Germany; j MENziL, Arabic ; a station.
RAHL, Arabic ; a village, or house.
KAFR, Arabic; a village.
BENDER, Arabic; a market-town. coLN ; Latin colonia. E.g. Lincoln, Cologne.
HIPPO, Phoenician; a walled town.
HAZOR, Arabic and Hebrew; an inclosure for cattle in the desert. A common prefix in the names of the settlements of the fixed Arabs. E.g. Hazar-Ithman, Hazar-Aman. Wilton, Negeb, pp. 75, 99.
RUP, Holstein ;
THORPE, \ I Norse; a village. E.g. Althorp, Ibthrop, Rorup,,
THROP, y England; > Wanderup, Dusseldorf. Buttmann, Ortsnamen,. TROP, j p. 21. pp. 127, 146.
DORF, Germany; J
E.g. Reading, Tubingen.
pp. 105-123.
p. 88.
pp. 88, 89.
p. 198.
p. 84.
Words and Places
418
TOFT, Danelagh;) Norse; an inclosure; related to turf.
'rj “
E.g. Lowestoft,
TOT, Normandy ; / Plumetot. pp. 127, 146.
THWAiTE, Norse; a forest clearing. £.g. Finsthwaite. p. 127.
LEBEN, Germany; a place to live in. This suffix is very prevalent north of the Hartz. See Gerland, in Kuhn’s Zeitschrift, vol. x. ; Forstemann, Ortsnamen, p. 107; Latham, English Language^ vol. i. p. 125.
STAPLE, England; a market. E.g. Dunstable, Etaples. P-335-
KAHN, Arabic; a market.
MULLEN, Gadhelic; a mill. E.g. Mullingar, Mulintra.
MLYN, Sclavonic; a mill. E.g. Mlinek. Buttmann, Orlsnamen^ p. 133. MASARA, Arabic; a mill.
KiL, Gadhelic; a cell; a church. E.g. Killin. p. 309.
LLAN, Cymric; an inclosure; a church. E.g. Llanberis. pp. 175, 309. MOUTiERS, France;
MINSTER, England;
MONASTER, Ireland, Greece;
DEiR, Arabic; a house; a monastery. p. 89.
GHAR, Arabic; a grotto. E.g. Trafalgar. pp. 89, 93.
HiTHE, Anglo-Saxon ; \ a wharf. E.g. Greenhithe, Erith, Lambeth, HAFEN, Norse; j Copenhagen, Kurische Haf. pp. 270, 319.
WERP, from the Danish hverve^ to turn, a word which appears in the name of Cape Wrath. E.g. Antwerp. See pp. 346, 349, supra ; Wedg- wood, in Philolog. Proc. vol. vi. p. 89.
MARSA, Arabic; a port. E.g. Marsala. pp. 87, 89.
DAM, an embankment. E.g. Rotterdam, Amsterdam.
j
p. 310.
a monastery. E.g. Westminster, Monas- terevin in Ireland. p. 315.
APPENDIX A
List of Names of Ancient Tribes preserved in the Names of Modern Cities and Provinces
(See p. 68.)
|
Ancient Names. |
Modern Cities and Provinces. |
|
Abrincatui, |
Avranches. |
|
Ambiani, |
Amiens. |
|
Andecavi, |
Angers in Anjou. |
|
Arverni, |
Auveme. |
|
Atrebates, |
Arras in Artois. |
|
Ausci, |
Auch. |
|
Bajucasses, |
Bayeux ? |
|
Bellovaci, |
Beauvais. |
|
Bigerrones, |
Bagneres de Bigorre. |
|
Bituriges-Vivisd,® |
Bordeaux ? |
|
Bituriges-Cubi, |
Bourges? Berri. |
|
Boii, |
Buch. |
|
Brannovices, |
Briennois. |
|
Brixantes, |
Bregentz. |
|
Cadurci, |
Cahors in Quercr. |
|
Caletes, |
Caux. |
|
Carnutes, |
Chartres. |
|
Cassii, |
Cashiobury. |
|
Catalauni, |
Chalons. |
|
Caturiges,'^ |
Chorgres. |
|
Cenomani, |
Le Mans. |
|
Centrones, |
Centron. |
|
Cimbri, |
Cambrilla, Quimper. |
|
Conembricae, |
Coimbra. |
|
Consorranni, |
Conserans, |
|
Convenae, |
Comminge, |
|
Curosolites, |
Corseult. |
|
Damnonii, |
Devon. |
|
Diablintes, |
Jubleins. |
|
Durocasses, |
Dreux. |
|
Durotriges, |
Dorchester in Dorset. |
|
Eburovices, |
Evreux. |
|
Elusates, |
Eause. |
|
Gabali, |
Javaux in Gevaudan. |
|
Huicii, |
Worcester. |
^ The second portion of this name is the Celtic rix, a king, which is found in the names of Ambiorix, Dumnorix, Orgetorix, Rigomagus, etc. See Zeuss, Gram. Celt. vol. i. p. 25. Rajah, rex, reich, and rich, and the names Austria, Richard, are cognate words.
419
420 Words and Places
|
Ancient Names. Iberi, Iceni, |
Modern Cities and Provinces. Ebro. Iken, Ickborough, Ickworth. |
|
Lexovii, Lemovices, lingones. |
Lisieux. Limoges in Limousin. Langres. |
|
Mediomatrici, Meldi, |
Metz. Meaux. |
|
Namnetes, Nantuates, |
Nantes. Nantueil. |
|
Parish, Petrocorii, Pictones, |
Paris. Perigueux in Perigord. Poictiers in Poitou. |
|
Remi, Rhedones, Rothomagi, Ruteni, |
Rheims.^ Rennes. Rouen. Rhodez in Rovergne. |
|
Santones, Scoti, Seduni, Selgovse, Sen ones, Sesavii, or Saji, Silvanectes, Suessiones, |
Saintes in Saintonge. Scotland. Sion or Sitten. Solway. Sens. Seez. , Senlis. Soissons. |
|
Taurini, Tolosates, Treviri, Tricasses, Tungri, Turones, |
Turin, or Torino. Toulouse. Treves, or Trier. Troyes. Tongres. Tours in Touraine. |
|
Vassates, or Vasarii, Velavii, Veliocasses, Veneti, Veneti, Veromandui, Viducasses, |
Bazas. Velay. Vexin. Vannes in La Vendee. Venice. Vermand. Vieux, near Caen. |
On these and other more doubtful names of the same class, see Contzen, Die Wanderungen der Kelten^ pp. 9-18; Zeuss, Die Deutschen, pp. 204- 206; Gliick, Die bei Caius Julius Ceesar vorkommende keltischen Namen,
^ Dean Milman states that Rheims took its name from St. Remigius. A strange barepoy wp&repov. See History of Latin Christianity^ vol. i.
I>. 257.
APPENDIX B
SAXOB PATRONYMICS IN ARTOIS AND IN ENGLAND
(See p. III.)
|
Family Names. Ablings .^clings iElings . . . 1 |
French Villages. Eblinghem . Aeclinghen . < Alencthun . lAlenthun . |
|
iEscings, the royal J race of Kent . "j |
1 Assinghen . Azincourt (the • 1 battle-field) |
|
iEslings |
Eslinghen . . < |
|
Aldrings . . Adings . . . j Bahngs . . . j |
Audrehem . rAutingues . . ’ Audinghen . 1 Audincthun . , ;Bayenghem . , Baincthim . . - iBainghen (2) . |
|
Basings • • . |
Bazinghen . . J . Bezinghen . . 1 |
|
Bastings |
Balinghem . . | |
|
Beorlings . . • |
Barlinghem . . j |
|
Berlings |
Berlinghen . . | |
|
Bonnings . |
Bonningues . . | |
|
Bosings |
Boeseghem . . | |
|
Bucings . • |
i Bouquinghen . < |
421
English Villages.
Ablington, Glouc. and Wilts. Acklington, Northumberland. Allington, Kent^ Hants, Dorset, Devon, Wilts, Lincoln.
Essington, Staff.
Essentona {Exon' Domesday). iEscingas (Codex Diplornaticus, Surrey, No. iii).
I' Ashlingham, Kent.
•j Esselingaforda (Exon' Domesday). I iEslingaham (Cod. Dipl. No. iii). Aldrington, Sussex.
Addington, Northants.
Adingtone (Kent, Domesday).
Bavington, Northumberland. Bevington, Warwick.
Bevingford, Sussex.
I^Bassingham, Lincoln.
J Basing, Hants.
Bessingham, Norfolk,
J Besingas (Cod. Dipl. No. 994).
Basingeham, (Domesday, Sussex I and Lincoln).
Ballingham, Hereford.
Ballingdon, Essex.
Belingham (Sussex, Domesday). Belintona (Hertfordshire, Dom.). Barling, Kent and Essex.
Boerlingas (Codex Dipl. Kent, Na.
152).
Birlingham, Worcestershire.
Berling, Sussex.
Birling, Kent and Northumberland^ /Boningale, Salop.
I Boninghall, Salop. j Bennington, Kent and Notts. vBonintone (Kent, Domesday). /Bossingham, Kent.
J Bossington, Hants and Somerset. j Bossingden, Kent.
VBosintuna (Exon' Domesday). r Buckingham, Bucks.
Becking, Essex and Suffolk. «
< Boccingas (Cod. Dipl. Essex, No^.
I 698).
^Biiccingas (Chron. Sax. a.d. 918).
422
Family Names. Bofiings
Collings
Fallings
Borings
Frescings
Frelings
Garlings
Gystlings
Words and Places
Hallings
Heardings .
Haeferings .
Helvelings . Hircelings .
Hoi’ings
Hundings . . .
Islings . . . .
Ledings • •
Ledrings .
Lings . . . .
Locings • . .
Lodings
Leasings
LuUings, or Lil- lings . . ,
Mannings
Maerings, Merovin- gians of France
French Villages. Bouvelinghem .
Colincthun (2) .
EUingehen .
Eringhem •
Fersinghem
Frelinghien
Garlinghem
Guslinghem
Halinghen .
(Hardinghem Hardinghen Hardenthim
Hauvringhen .
Helvelinghem . Herquelinghen .
Henringhen
Hondeghem
Islinghem . Ledinghem .
Ledringhem
Linghem
Locquinghen
Lottinghen Lozinghem / Leulinghem j Leulinghen I Lenlingue .
/ Maninghem I Maninghen .
English Villages.
Bowling, Kent.
{Collington, Sussex and Hereford. Collingham, Notts, Yorkshire. Colingas {Cod. Dipl. IFi/fe,No. 336). fEllingham, Hants, Norfolk, Norths I umberland.
Ellington, Kent, Hants, Yorks, I Northumberland. lEllinge, Kent.
{ Eringham, Sussex.
(Eringden, Yorkshire.
Fressingfield, Suffolk,
Frillinghurst, Surrey,
Garlinge, Kent, j Guestling, Sussex.
\Gyrslingas (Cod. Dipl. No. 967).
{Hailing, Kent.
Hallington, Line. Norikum.
ntilTnegai}(^"'°”’ Domesday). Halingas (Cod. Dipl. Kent, No. 160). /Hardingham, Norfolk.
J Hardingstone, Northamptonshire.
I Hardington, Somerset, VHardinctona (York. Domesday). f Haveringham, Suffolk.
\ Havering, Essex.
Elvington, Yorkshire.
Hecklinge, Kent.
^Horrington, Somerset.
•j Herington, Dorset. vHerringe, Kent.
( Huntingdon, Hunts.
•{ Hunningham, Warwickshire, vHodingas (Cod. Dipl. No. 983).
Islington, Norfolk and Middlesex,
( Llddington, Rutland and Wilts, \Leding (Domesday, Somerset), r Litheringham, Suffolk,
-j Ledrincgeham (Domesday, Inquisit* V Eliensis).
{Lingham, Chesh,
Lingen, Hereford.
Lingas (Cod. Dipl. Mid. No. 159). ( Locking, Somerset.
•j Lockinge, Berks.
VLockington, Leic. and Yorks. Loddington, Kent. Leic. Northamp, Lossingham, Kent.
( Lullin^on, Sussex, Derby, Somerset. -j Lillington, Dors. Oxford, Warwick. vLc^^ona (Exon* Domesday).
{Maningham, Norfolk.
Manningtree, Essex.
Mannington, Dors, and Norfolk. fMarington, Salop,
1 Mering, Notts.
Family
Macssings
Maecsings
Myrcings
Mailings
Mollings Ulings .
Paellings
Rasding^
Ricings . Ridings Sinnings
Taetings
Teorlings
Tings . Tortings
Todings
Trings . FeOTlings
Wiccings
Westings
Wealings
Wadings
Appendix
423
I'Masinghen .
•j Mazinghem I Mazingarbe
Macquinghen Merkeghem .
Melingue-dal
Molinghem . Olincthun .
Pelincthim .
Names. French Villages. English Villages.
/Massingham, Norfolk.
' J Messingham, Lincoln.
’ 1 Messing, Essex.
* vMsesingas {Cod. Dipl. No. 953).
. Matching, Essex.
Markington, Yorkshire.
J Mailing, Lancashire.
* (Millington, Chesh. and Yorkshire. /Molington, Chesh. Oxford. Warm.
. -j Mailing, Kent and Sussex.
(Molintoiia [Cheshire, Domesday).
. Ullingswick, Herefordshire. j'Pallington, Dorset.
I Pallingham, Sussex.
. Pilling, Lancashire.
j^Palingas [Cod. Dipl. Sussex, No.
r Raddington, Somersetshire. Reading, Berkshire.
Radinghem (2). •< Radingetuna [Exon* Domesday).
I Readingas [Cod. Dipl. Berks, No. 685).
j Rickinhall, Suffolk.
* ( Ragintona [Dorset, Domesday).
. Ricklirig, Essex.
j Sennington, Yorkshire.
' (Senendone [Exon* Domesday).
{Tattingstone, Suffolk.
Taddington, Gloucester. Derby. Tatintune [Hereford. Domesday). Tatintone [Gloucester. Domesday). rXerling, Essex.
' 4 Terlingas [Cod. Dipl. Essex, No.
* V 907).
. Tingeham [Dorset, Domesday).
■ |xortington, Sussex.
/Xoddington, Bedford. Gloucester.
J Xottington, Lane. Norfolk.
1 Xotingas [Cod. Dipl. Surrey, Nos.
V 363, 785).
. Xring, Herts.
. /Farlington, Hants, Yorkshire.
. •! Ferlintun [York. Domesday).
. iFerlingelai [Kent, Domesday).
/Witchingham, Norfolk^
, J Wickinghurst, Kent.
. I Wigingas [Cod. Dipl. Kent. No. 225 ;
\ Chron. Sax. Herts, a.d. 921).
. Westington, Gloucestershire. r Wellingham, Sussex.
Welling, Kent.
Wellington, Wilts, Salop, Som., Herts.
Welingas [Cod. Dipl. Wilts, No. 462). Wellingas [Cod. Dipl. Herts, No. 410).
jWaddington, Lincoln. Yorkshire.
( Waddingham, Lincoln.
Racquinghem
Recklinghem
Senninghem
Xatinghem .
f Xerlincthun t Tour linct him
Xinghen / Xerdinghem \ Xardinghen
Todincthun
. Dringem /Verlinghen .
. •! Verlinghem I Verlincthun
f Wicquinghem * (Wacquinhem
. Ouestinghen
Velinghen
Wadenthun
424
Words and Places
PATRONYMICS IN ENGLAND, GERMANY. AND FRANCE (See pp. 118-123.)
The German names in the third column to which a is appended are ia the Westphalian district. The rest are in Franconia and Swabia, unless the contrary is expressly stated.
Families. England. %, Germany. France.
Ecgings . Eckington, Dev. Wor. Eckingen
Edings . . Edington, Ber. Som. Eutingen • . Autigny, Cham. (2).
Wilts, NtUd. Lorr.
Audenge, Guienne.
Eadlings . Edlingham, Nthld. . Aidlingen Edlington, Lin. York. Ettlingen Oetlingen
Efings * . Evingar, Hants. . . Oeyinghausen, W. Ef&ncourt, Cham.
Evington, Gl. Lan. . Ehingen Effingham, Sus. . . Oef&ngen
iEfings . . Avington, Ber. Hants. Auingen . . . Auvignac, Ang.
Ofings , . Ovington, Ess. Hants. . . . . . Offignies, Pic.
Nor. Nthld. York.
Ovingham,yof^.iV//^/^^.Of&ngen . . . Of&ngues, /. 0/ F.
Uffings . Owing, Sus. Bucks. . Owingen . . . Oigny, Pic., Bi^r., Vend.
\JfLngion,Ber.Lin.Sal. Euf&gneux, Cham.
Uihingen . . Juvigny, Nor.
Eoferings . Everingham, York. Effringen . . Evrange, Lcnr.
Erflinghausen, W. Avrigny, Fr. Com.
Eaglings . Eglingham, Nthld. . Eglingen (2)
Icelings . Icklingham, Sw/. . . Igglingen
iElings f . AUington, Dev. Dor. ..... Allinges, Burg. (2).
Hants, Kent, Lin. Alaigne, Nivern.
Wilts. Alligny, Bur., Berri.
Alincourt, Champ. Alaincourt, Fr. Com., Lwr.
|
EUings . |
• Ellingham, Ham. Nor. Oelinghausen, Nthld. Ellington, Hants, Oellingen Kent, Nthld. Yor. |
W. |
|
lUings . |
. Illington, Nor. . . Illingen . Illingworth, York. . Ihlingen |
. Iligny, Burg. |
|
iElcings |
. Alkington, Glo. Sal |
|
|
Elcings . |
. Elkington, Nhm. Lin. Elchingen |
. Elzange, Lorr. |
|
Aidings . |
. Aldingham, . . Aldingen Aldington, Kent, Altingen Wore. Hailtingen Eltingen |
|
|
.^Elhngs |
. Alphington, Dev. . . Alfingen |
. Alvignac, Qutrey. |
|
Eilfingerhof . |
, Elvange, Dorr . |
|
Appendix |
425 |
||
|
Families, Elmings |
England. Elmington, Ntham. . |
Germany, Elmingen |
France. |
|
Elrings . |
Ellerington, Nthld. . |
Ailringen |
|
|
Emmings . |
Immingham, Lin. |
Imminghausen, W. Emmingen |
|
|
Annings |
Anningas {Cod. Dip.). |
Uninghausen, W. |
Aniange, Fr. Com. |
|
Antings |
Antingham, Norf. |
Antigny, Bur. (2), Poit. (2). Andigne, Lorr. |
|
|
Eppings Ipings . |
Epping, Ess. , Iping, Sus. |
Eppinghofen, W. Epping, Lorr. Ebbinghausen,PF. Epagny, Bur.y Pic. Epagne, Cham, |
|
|
iEbings |
Abington, Cam, . |
Appingadam, Groningen |
Aubigne, Poit.^Anj. (2). Aubigny,Bwr.(3),C/iaw. (3), Niev. (2), Berrt. (2), F. Com. Ebbange, Lorr. Epinac, Bur. |
|
Upings . |
Uppingham, Rut. Uppington, Sal. . |
Upfingen Oppingen |
|
|
Arrings . Eorrings Irings (royal race of Avars), |
Arrington, Cam. . Erringden, York. Erringham, Sus. . |
Ehringen Erringhausen, W. Oehringen . |
Arrigny, Champ. Eragny, Bur. Erigne, Anj. Eringes, Bur. Origny, Cham.^ Bur., Pic. (2). Irigny, Lyon. |
|
Arlings . |
Arlingham, Glou. Arlington, D^.G/o.5ifS. |
Erligheim |
Earmings . Ermington, Dev. . Ermingen
Eorpings . Erpingham, iVof. . Erpfingen
Orpington, Orbigny, Cham. (2),
Tour.
Ercensings . Kensington, Mid. . Ergenzingen
Artings . . Artington, Sus Artigny, Tour.
Eardings . Erdington, War. . . Ertingen
Eardington, Sal.
iEscings . Assington, Ess. . . Assinghausen, W. Assigny, Berri.
Essings . . Essington, Staf. . . Essingen . . Essigny, I. of F,
Easington, Buc. Dur. Oeschingen
Glou. Nthld. Ox. York.
Isings » . Issington, Hants Isigny, Lorr,
Ising, Lorr,
Words and Places
426
Families. iEsclings iC.D.) Islings .
iEtings . Ettings .
Baebings
Bobbings
Beccings
Boeings
Bajdings {Cod. Dip.
Budings Baedlings .
Biterings . Bofings .
Beofings
Bellings
Baelings Billings .
Bolings
Bullirigs
England. Germany. France.
. Ashling, . . . Aislingen
. Islington, Nor. Mid. . Esslingen . . Etzling, Larr.
Eislingen
. Attington, 0;row. . . Atting . . . Attigny, Lorr., Cham.
Aygem, Belgium (once Addingem)
. Ettinghall, 5/a/. . . Ettenheim . . Etting, Lorr.
Oettinger . . Etigny, Cham.
Etang, Bur. {2), I. of Fr.
Babington, Som. . . Babing . . . Balbigny, Bur.
Bobinger, Ess. . . Bobinger . . Baubigny, Norm.
Bobbing, Kent. . . Bobingen . . Beaubigny, Bur.
Bobbington, Staf. Sal Bobigny, I. of Fr.
Bobbingworth, Ess.
Beckingham, Ess. Lin. Bechingen (2) . Becquigny, Pic. Notts.
Beckington, Som.
Begging, Ess. . . . Bigginghausen, W.
Booking, Ess. Suf. . Bochingen . . Bouquigny, Maine.
Buckingham, Berks, Boequegney, Cham.
Essex, Bucks. Bochange, Lorr.
Beeding, Sus. . . Betinghof, W. . Betting, Lorr.
) Beddington, Swr. . Bottingen . . Bettigny, Cham.
Beddingham, Sus. Bettagny, Lorr.
Norf. .... Biding . . . Biding, Lorr.
Bietigheim . . Bettange, Lorr.
Bettignies, Main.
, Buddington, Sus. . Beutingen . . Buding, Lorr.
, Bedlington, Dwf. . . Bettlingen . . Budeling, Lorr.
Betlinghausen, W.
Bittering, Norf. . . Bettringen
Bovington, Ess. . . Bopfingen . . Bouvigny, Lorr.
Bovingdon, Herts. . Boihingen . . Boigny, Orl.
Boinghausen, W.
Bevington, War. . . Beihingen
Bellinger, Hants. . . Bollingerhof . Belingreville, Norm.
Bellingham, Nthld. . Belinghausen . Belligne, Anjou.
Bellingdon, Bucks Belligneux, Burg.
Belange, Lorr.
Ballingham, Here. . Balagny, /. of F. (2).
Balingdon, Ess Blagny, Burg.
Billing, Nthld. . . Billenhausen . Billanges, Marche.
Billinge, Lan. . . Billingsbach . Bligny, Burg. (3),
Billingham, Dwf. . . Billinghausen, Champ, {z).
Billingside, Dur.
Billingley, York.
Bolingbroke, Lin. . Bollingen . . Bolligney, Fr. Com.
Bollington, Ess. Cites BoUigneux, Bur.
Bowling, Kent Bologne, Champ.
Bullingdon, Oxon. . Buhlingen . . Bulligny, Lorr.
Bullingham, Here.
Appendix
427
|
Families, Blaecings |
England. Bletchingley, Sur. Bletchington, Oxon. |
Germany. Blochingen • . |
France. Blessignac, Guienne. |
|
Beltings |
Belting, Kent. |
Baldingen |
|
|
Bennings . |
Bennington, Lin. Benningen . . Bening, Lorr, (2). Benningworth, Lin. . BenninghausenjH'^.Benigne, Burg. Benningbrough, York. Bonnigheim Bonnington,.^^nLEs5. Benningen, Liw- Notts. burg |
||
|
Bings . . |
Bing, Suff. Bingham, Nthamp. • Bingley, York. |
Bingen • |
Binges, Burg. Buigny, Champ. |
|
Bondings . |
Bondington, Som. |
Bontigny, Lorr, |
|
|
Beorings Berrings Burrings |
Barrington, Som. Ess. Bahringen . . Berigny, Norm. Glo. Cam. Berks. Bieringen . . Berengeville, Norm. Berrington, Dur. Gl. Beringen, Limburg Sal. Wor. Beringen {Charters) Burrington, Dev. Here. Bohringen Som. Burringham, Lin, |
||
|
Eberdings . |
Birdingbury, War. , |
Eberdingen |
|
|
Birlings |
Berling, Sus. . Birling, Kent, Nthld. |
Bierlingen Berlinghausen, PT. |
Berlingen, Alsace. |
|
Bermarings |
Birmingham, War. , Barming, Kent |
Bennaringen |
|
|
Beornings . |
Barningham,5tt/. Yor^.Berninghausen, Notts. W. |
||
|
Brantings . |
Brantingham, York. . |
Brantigny, Champ. |
|
|
Brahcings . (C.D.) |
Braughin, Herts. . |
Brockingen |
|
|
Bressings . |
Bressingham, Nor. . |
Bretzingen |
|
|
Brimings . |
Brimington, Derby , |
Breimingsweiler |
|
|
Brislings |
Brislington, Som . |
Borslingen (2) |
|
|
Britings |
Brittenton, Ox. , |
Breitingen . |
Bretegny, Fr. C. (2), Nor., Bur., I. of Fr. |
|
Basings Bessings |
Basing, Hants Bassingham, Lin. Bessingby, York. Bessingham, Nor. |
Baisingen . . Bazegny, Cham., Fr. C. Beisinghausen, W. Bissingen (2) . . Bissines, Lim. Bessigheim . . Bezing, Bearn. Betzingen . . Bezange, Lorr. |
|
|
Buslings |
Buslingthorpe, Lin. . |
Borslingen . |
Bousselange, Bur. |
Cidings .
. Keddington, Lin. . Keddinghausen,W'’. Quetigny, Burg. Kedington, Ess. Suf. Kottinghausen,PF.
p 517
Words and Places
428
Families, England, Germany, France,
Geddings . Gedding, Suf, . • Jettingen
Yeading, Mid.
Caedings . Caddington, Bed. Herts Catigny, I, of F,
Godings . Goddington, Oxon. , Gottingen
Ceadlings . Gedling, Notts, , , Giiltlingen
or Cycelings Gogglingen
Cucklington, Som. , Guglingen
Gaegings . Gagingwell, Oxon, , Gechingen
Giichingen
Cofings . Covington, Hunts. , GofSngen . . Cauvigny, 7. of F., Pic.
Couvignon, Champ.
Cifings • . Chevington, Suf. , • • • • . Chevigny, Cham., Fr.
Nthld, Com. (4), Burg. {s).
Chevincourt, I. of Fr. Chavigny, Fr. Com. (4), I. of Fr. (2), Lorr.
Ifings • . Jevington, Sus Gevigny, Fr. Com.
Ivinghoe, Bucks. . • • • • . . Juvigni, Maine.
Juvigny, Champ., 1. of Fr. (2), Lorr. (2), Norm. (4), Pic.
Callings • Callington, Corn. • • . • . . Caligny, Norm.
Challange, Burg. Nor. Galinagues, Lang.
Cyllings . Chellington, Bedf. . Kellinghausen,!^’. Challange, Burg. Norm. Kelling, Norf.
Kellington, York. . Kellinghausen, Chaligny, Lorr. Chillington, Som. Dev. Holstein Chillingham, Nthld. . Gellinghausen, W.
Gillings . Gilling, York. . . Killingen . . Julligny, Burg.
Gillingham, Dor. Kent, Jaligny, Bourb.
Nor.
Yelling, Hunts.
Collings . Collingham, Notts, York, • • • • . Collonge, Burg.
Collington, Here. , • . . . . Coligny, Burg.
CuUings . Cullingworth, York Coulange, Bur. Bourb.
Camerings . Cameringham, Lin. . Gemmrigheim . Chemigny, /. of Fr.
Gomaringen
Cennings . Kennington, Kent, Gonningen
Surrey, Berks.
Gings • . Ginge, Berks. , , . Gingen . • . Gigny, Bur. (2), Cham.
Giengen (2), Lorr., Fr. C.
Jeugny, Cham.
Copings . Coppingsyke, Lin. , Kuppingen
Cubings . Cubbington, War.
Gippings . Gipping, Suf. , , Goppingen
Cerrings . Carrington, Ches. Lin Charigny, Burg.
Notts
Charing, Kent
Cherrington, Wor. Sal Guerigny, Niev,
Appendix
429
Families,
Corings
Cearlings
Garlings
Cyrtlings
Cridlings
Cressings
England. Germany. France.
Corringham, Lin. Ess Corignac, Guienne.
Carlingcot, Som. . . ..... Carling, Lorr.
Garlinge, Kent . . Gerlingen
Yarlington, Som. . Gerlinghausen, W.
Kirtling, Cam. . . Kortlinghausen, W.
Cridling Stubbs, York. Creglingen
Cressing, Ess. . . Griesingen * . . Gressigny, Burg.
Cressingham, Norf. . Grozingen
Casssings . Cassington, Oxon. . Kasing . . . Chassigny,Bwrg.,C/iaw.
Geisingen . . Chasseigne, Niev.
Chessington, Sur. . Jesingen * , . Chassange, Bur.^ Fr. Kessingland, Suf. . Kosingen Com., Niev.
Giissingen . . Chessigny, Burg.
Cosings . Cossington, Leic. Som Jossigny, I. of F. Bur.
Cussington, Kent Gussignies, Flan.
Ghisignies, Flan.
Gislings . Gislingham, Suf. . . Geislingen
Gestings . Gestingthorpe, Ess. . Justingen
Tibbings . Tibbington, Staf. . Tubingen
Docings . Docking, Norf. . . Ddchingen
Dyeings . Duckington, Ches. . Dachingen
Dykings, Lin. . . Deggingen (2)
Dicelings . Ditchling, Sus. . . Dusslingen . . Desseling, Lorr.
Deddings . Deddington, Oxon. . Dedinghausen, W.
Diddings . Diddington, Hunts . Dietingen
Dottingen
Dattingen
Dettingen (6) ^ . Teting, Lorr. Daiting . . . Theding, Lorr.
Dodings • Doddington, Cam. Dottingen
Ches. Kent, Lin. Dudinghausen, W.
Nthld. Ntham.
Dodington, Glou. Sal.
Som.
|
Todings |
. Toddington, Bed. Tottington, Nor. Lan. |
|
|
Daefings |
t Davington, Kent . . Dofiingen |
. Davignac, Ltm. Daigny, Cham. Digny, Orl. |
|
Dillings |
. Dillington, Nor. . . Dehlingen |
. Delincourt, I. of F. |
|
Daellings |
. Dalling, Norf. Dallington, Sus. Nthmp. |
^ In the Charters Chresinga. Kausler, Urkund. vol. i. p. 407.
® Teddingen, Tettingen, and Totingen in the Charters. See Kausler.
Words and Places
430
‘ Families, England, Germany,
Demings . Demingen
I Dinnings . Dinnington, Som, Deiningen York, Nthld,
Diiitings . Dinting, Derby . . Dentingen * .
Darings or Thorington, Suf,
Thurings Thorrington, Ess,
Dartings . Dartington, Dev, • . Dertingen
Trings . . Tring, Herts
Dissings . Dissington, Nthld, . Dischingen . .
Ditzingen
Finnings . Finningham, Suf, , Finingen
Feormings . Farmington, Glou
Frestings . Frestintorp {York, Frestingen
Domesday)
Frings . . Fring, Nor
|
Frescinga |
. Fressingfield, Suf. |
|
|
Frilings |
. Frillinghurst, Sur. . |
Frilinghausen,TF. |
|
Hascings Hocings |
, Heckingham, Nor. , Heckingen . Heckington, Lin. Heighington, Dur. Lin, . Hacking, Kent, |
|
|
Hsedings Heddings Hudings |
. Haddington, Lin, , Heddingham, Ess. , Heddington, Wilts . Haddington, Wor. . |
Heddinghausen, PiP Hutting . |
|
Heofings Hofings |
. Hevingham, Nor, . Hovingham, York. |
Hofingen |
|
Hellings |
. Flellinghill, Nthld, , |
Hellinghausen, W. |
|
Holings |
• Hollington, Staff, Sus. Dev. |
|
|
Hemings |
. Hemington, Ntham. Hemmingen . Som. Hemminghausen,! |
Hemingbrough, Yor. Hemingstedt, Holstein.
^ Tantiga in Charters.
France,
Demigny, Burg.
Denting, Lorr,
Thorigny, Poit. (2), Nor,, I. of Fr, Thorign6, Poit.
Tartigny, Pic,
Trigny, Cham. Thrangy, Lorr.
Desaignes, Lang.
Formigny, Norm.
Frignicourt, Cham. Freign6, Anj.
Vregny, I. of Fr. Viigny, Cham., Orl., Nor.
Fressines, Poit. Fressigne, Marche.
Hickange, Lor,
Heyingen, Lor. Hocquincourt, Pic. (2)
Hadigny, Cham., Lor. '.Hettange, Lorr. (2).
Hodeng, Nor. Hodenger, Nor.
Helling, Lor. Hoelling, Lor. Halignicourt, Cham. Holling, Lor.
Heming, Lor., Als.
Appendix 43 1
Families. England. Germany. France.
Hanings . Hannington, Hants, Heiningen . . Hiening, Lor.
Ntham. Wilts Henninghausen,Tr.
Hunings . Hunningham, War Huningue, Als.
Hundings . Huntingdon, Hunts . Undingen . . Hunting, Lor.
Hensings . Kensington, Oxon Hensing, Lorr.
Hensingham, Cum Hinsingen, Als.
Heorings . Herring, KerU, Dor. . Heringhausen,PF. Hareigny, Pic. Hecirings . Harrington, Haringkarspel,
Hornsey, Mid. (an- Holland. ciently Haringsey)
Horings . Horrington, Som Hurigny, Burg.
Origny, Burg., I. of Fi .
Herelings . Harling, Norf. . . Herrlingen . . Hallering, Lorr.
Harlington, Bed. Mid. Herlingen . . Hellering, Lorr. (2).
York Hirrlingen
Heardings . Hardingham, Norf Hardancourt, Lorr.
Haessings . Hassingham, Nor. . Hessigheim . . Hesingue, Als.
Hausingen
Hicelings . Hickling, Nor. Notts. Heuchlingen Hecklinge, Kent
Haeslings . Heslington, York Hesling, Lorr.
Haestings
Laecings
Leasings
Ledings
Lidlings
Ledrings
Leafings
Lofings
Laeferings
Lullings
. Hastings, Sus. Ber Hastingues, Gasc.
War. Ntham.
. Lackington, Som. . Laichingen . . Lixing, Lorr. (2).
Lachingdon, Ess.
. Leasingham, Lin. . Lazingen . . Lassigny, Pic.
Lossingham, Kent Lusigny, Burg.
Lissington, Lin Lessigny, I. ofFr.,Poit.
Lezigne, Anj.
, Leding {Som. Dom.) Leting, Lorr.
Liddington, Rut. Wilts Ladignac, Lim.{2),Gui.
. Lidlington, Bed. . . Leuglingen
. Ledrincgeham (Ely, Liitringhausen,W'’.
Domesday)
. Lavington, Kent Lavigny, Fr. C. (2).
Leavington, York. . Lauingen . . Levigny, Cham.
Levington, Suf Leffincourt, Cham.
Levignac, Gui. (2). Levigneu, /. of Fr.
• Lovington, Som. Ess Louvagny, Nor.
Louvigny, Nor. Leuvigne, Maine.
. Leverington, Cam. . Leveringhausen,W^.
. Lullington, Dev, Som. Lollinghausen, W.
Sus.
432
Families. Lings . .
Mecings
Maeglings .
Mailings
Mellings
Millings
MoUings
Mincings
Mintings
Myrcings .
Maerings or Myrgings (Merovin- gians, the royal race of France)
Maessings .
Words and Places
|
England. Lingham, Ches. . Lings, York. Lingen, Here. . • • |
Germany. |
France. . Ligny, Lorr., Niev. (2), Bur., Cham., Orl. . Legny, Burg. Laign6, Pait. (2), Anj., Maine. |
|
Meeching, Sus. . |
Maichingen . |
. Mecquingies, Flan. Macquigny, Pic. |
|
Maudling, Sus. . |
Mogglingen (2) Meckhnghausen, W. |
|
|
Mailing, Kent, Sus . Malange, Fr. C. Malign^, Orl. Maligny, Bur., Cham. Meling, Lan. . . . Meiling . . . Meligny, Lor. (2). Millington, Ches. York. Millinghausen,>F. Melincourt, Fr. C. Melange, Lorr. Mollington, Ches. Ox Mollinconrt, I. of Fr. Wor. Molinges, Fr. C. Molangues, 1. of Fr. |
||
|
Minchingbury, Herts. |
Miinchingen |
|
|
Minting, Lin. . . . |
Mundingen . . |
. Montigny, Fr. Com. (3), Norm., I. of Fr., Flan. (2). |
|
Markington, York. . Marchington, Staf. . |
Merkingen . Emerkingen . |
. Marcigny, Bur. (2). . Marquigny, Cham. Marsigne, Niev. |
|
Mering, Notts . Merrington, Sal. Dur. Marrington, Sal. . |
Mohringen ^ . Muhringen * Mahringen Moringen Mehring Emeringen Vollmar ingen |
, Marigny, Bur. (3), Cham. (2), Poit. (3), Orl., I. of Fr., Bour., Norm. (2), Fr. C., Niev. (3). Emeringe, Bur. Merigny, Meeringes, Cham. Maringis, Bur. Maragny, Bur. Marignac, Gui. (6). Mairegne, Lang. Marigna, Fr. C. (3). Marign6, Anj. (2), Maine. Merignac, Gui. (3). Morigny, Bur., I. of Fr. |
|
Massingham, Notts . Messing, Ess. Messingham, Lin. |
Messinghausen,PF.Massigny, Bur. Mossingen . . Messigny, Bur. Metzingen . . Messignac, Bur. Motzingen . . Metzing, Lorr. Mussingen . . Musigny, Bur. |
Meringen in Charters.
Mieringen in Charters, Kausler, vol. i. p. 34.
Appendix 433
Families. England. Germany. France.
|
Hastings Maedings Mottings |
. Mettingham, Suf. Mattingley, Hants , . Haddington, Wilts . Hadingley, Camb. . Hottingham, Kent . |
Hietingen Hedingen |
. Metting, Lorr. . Hatigny, 7. of Fr. , Hedegny, Champ. • Hutigny, Cham. |
|
Mutlings |
. Hudling, Ess. |
Hottlingen |
|
|
Naecings |
. Nedging, Suf. |
Notzingen Nichtinghausen, W. |
|
|
Nydings |
. Needingworth, Hun. |
Nettingen |
. Nitting, Lorr. |
|
Nollings |
. Nollington, Sus. . |
Nellingen (2) Nellingheim |
, Nelling, Lorr. |
|
Paeccings |
. Patching, Ess. Sus. , |
Peiching . |
. Picquigny, Pic. Pussigny, Tour. |
|
Paefings .. |
. Pavingham, Bed. Pevington, Kent . |
Pfaffingen |
. Pagney, Fr. C. . Peugny, Fr. C. Poigny, Lorr. Pagny, Cham., Bur. (2), Lor. (3). |
|
Paellings Polings . |
. Palling, Norf. Pallingham, Sus. . Pallington, Dor. . Poling, Sus. . Pollington, York. |
Pulling . • |
. Paligny, Bur. (2). . Palignes, Bur. . Poligny, Cham., Poit., Fr. C. (2). Pouligny, Bur., Poit., Berri (2), Fr. C. Poulangy, Cham. . Pulligny, Lorr. |
|
Pennings |
. Pennington,i/a«/s, Ian. Pinning |
||
|
Porings . |
. Poringland, Norf. |
Poring , . |
. Perigny, Bur. (7), Fr. C. (2), Poit. Pe,vigi\Q,Poit.,Maine{^) . Perignac, Guin. (2). Parigny, Bur. {3), Nor. |
|
Pastings |
. Pattingham, Sal. Staf Puddington,B^<i. Cte. Putting . Dev. |
. Patigny, Bur. . Petignac, Ang. |
|
|
Petlings |
. Peatling, Leic. Pedling, Kent |
Piittlingen, W. |
|
|
Paetrings |
. Patrington, York. • |
. Petring, Lor. |
|
|
Rocings |
. Rockingham, Nham. |
Rockingen . |
. Rigny, Poit., Cham. {3), Tour., Fr. C., Burg. |
|
Ridings |
. Rickling, Ess. |
Recklinghausen, W. Richling, Lorr. |
Words and Places
434
|
Families. |
England. |
Germany. |
France, |
|
Raedings |
. Reddinge, Der. . |
. Rieding . |
. Reding, Lorr. |
|
Reddings, Ess. Readings, Ess. Reading, Ber. |
. Rodinghausen, W. . Rottingen |
Redange, Lorr, |
|
|
Rodings |
• Rodington, Sal. . Rottington, Cum. |
. Roding |
|
|
Raetlings |
. Ratlinghope, Sal. Redlingfield, Suf, |
. Riedlingen (2) . Reutlingen |
Reutlingdorf
Radling
Ratlinghausen, W.
Rifings . . Rivington, Lan. • • Riffingen . . Revigny, Lor,
Ruvigny, Cham, Roufiignac, Perig. (2). Rouf&gny, Norm,
Rillings • Rillington, York, . . Rellinghaus, W,
Rielingshausen, W,
Rehlingen . . Rahling, Lorr,
Rehling
Rimmings . Rimmington, York, , Remmingheim . Remigny, Rwr. (2), Pic.
Rammingen . . Rumigny, Cham,, Pic.
Rennings . Rennington, Nthld. . Renningen
Ringingen (2)
Rohning
Riplings . Riplingham, Yorh, . Rublingen
Riplington, Hants, Rieblingeii
Nthld.
|
Risings . |
. Rising, Nor. . Rissington, Glou, |
, Rissing . • Reissing Rexingen Reixingen Ritzing . Ratzing Reseghem, gium.^ |
. Resigny, Pic, , Ritzing, Lorr, Bel- |
|
Rustings |
. Rustington, Sus. |
, Reistingen • |
. Restigny, Tour, |
|
Rowings |
, Rowington, War, |
, Roigheim |
, Rugney, Cham, |
|
Secgings |
• Seckington, War, |
. Sickingen Schockingen |
|
|
Sceadings |
. Shadingfield, Suf. |
• Schietingen |
|
|
Sceanings |
. Shenington, Glou. |
. Scheningen |
|
|
Syclings Sceadings |
, Sicklinghall, York. , Skeckling, York. |
. Siglingen |
^ Anciently Rassinghem.
Appendix 435
Families, England. Germany, France,
Sydlings . Sydling, Dor. . . , Ziittlingen
Siedlinghausen, W,
Scyllings . Shellington, Bed. . Schillinger Shillingthorpe, Lin,
Saelings . . Saling, Ess Saligny, Bur., Fr.
Com., Cham., Bourb., Foil.
|
Sullings |
. Sullington, Sus, , |
Saleigne, Foil. Salignac, Gui. (3). • Solongy, Bur. Soulagny, Nor. Souligny, Cham. Soulignac, Gui. |
|
|
Sinnings |
. Sinnington, York. |
, Sinning . Zainingen |
, Signy, Cham. |
|
Sandlings |
. Sandling, Kent . |
. Sindlingen |
|
|
Syfings . Sceafings Seafings |
, Sevington, Kent , . Shavington, dies. Shevington, I.an. , Seavington, Som. |
. Zobingen |
, Sevigny, Cham. . Savigny, Bur.{S), Nor., Cham. (3), Fr. C., Foit., Lorr., Berri, |
I. of Ft.
Savign6, Foil., Maine (2), Tour.
Savigneux, Bur. (2). Savigna, Bur. Savignac, Gut. Savignies, I. of Fr. Sauvagny, Fr. Com. Sauvigny, Bur. (3), Fr. Com. (3), FI.
|
Sealfings |
. Salvington, Sus. , |
. Sofiingen |
. Selvigny, Fland. Silvange, Lorr. |
|
Seppings |
, Seppingeham {Line. Suppingen Domesday) |
||
|
Serings . Scearings , |
, Shering, Ess. . Sherringham, Nor. Sherrington, Bucks, Wilts. . Sharrington, Nor. |
. Serrigny, Bur. (3), Foit . Scringes, I. of Fr. Serignac, Gui. (4). . Sarronga, Bur. Sarregny, Bur. Sarrigne, Anj. Sorigny, Foit. |
|
|
Swannings . |
, Swannington,iVoy.L^^c.Schwenningen |
||
|
Swefelings . |
. Sweffling, Suf. |
. Zweiflingen |
|
|
Wiccings |
, Witchingham, Nor. |
. Weiching W eckinghausen, W. |
|
|
Wiclings |
Witchling, Kent . |
. Weuchlingen |
436 Words and Places
Families, England. Germany. ' France.
Wealings . Welling, Kent , . Wellingen
Wellington, Here. Sal, Vellinghausen, W,
Som. Wilts.
Fylings . . Fylingthorpe, York . Pfullingen . . Fuligny, Cham.
Fylingdales, York Foulanges, /. of Fr.
Folligny, Nor.
Wealdings . Waldingfield, Suf. . Weldingsfelden Wildingtree, Ess. , Weiltingen Walding Waiting
Wealdrings. Waldringfield, Suff. . Waltringhausen,lF.
Waelsings . Walsingham, Nor. . Wilsingen Wendlings . Wendling, Nor. . , Wendlingen
Wippings . Whippingham, Han. Wippingen
Waeplings . Waplington, York. . Waiblingen
Wiblingen
Waibling
Ferrings . Ferring, Ess. Sus. . Vohr ingen ^ . . Verigny, Lorr.
Farincourt, Cham.
Fer range, Lorr.
Waerings . Werrington, Dev. . Wehringen
Ntham. Weringhausen
Wereingeurda {Ex. Wieringerwaard, Varengreville, Nor. (2). Domesday) Holland
Waesings . Wessington, Derby . Wessingen
Wasing, Berks. . . Wasing . . . Vasincourt, Lorr,
Washington, Dev. Dur.
Sus.
Wiscings . Wissington, Sal. Suf. Wiesing
Wissinghausen, W.
Weordings . Worthing, Nor. Sus. . Wortingen Westings . Westington, Glou. . Oestinghausen, W.
Wittings . Whittington, Dev. Gl. Wittingeii Nthld. Lan. Nor. Weitingen Sal. Staf. War. Wor.
Whittingham, Lan.
Nthld.
Weddington, War. , Weddinghausen
Wederings . Wittering, Sus. . . Wittringen . • Vetrigne, Fr. Com.
Witherington, Wilts.
Witlings . Whitlingham, Nor. . Wittlingen
The English village-names have been taken chiefly from Mr. Kemble’s lists, supplemented from the Ordnance Maps, the Codex Diplomaticus, and Domesday : the German names from Bender’s Ortsnamen^ and the Govern- ment Surveys of Wiirtemberg and Bavaria: the French names from St. Fargeau’s useful Dictionnaire de toutes les Communes de la France^ and from the great French Survey.
^ Veringen in Charters, Kausler, vol. i. p. 315.
INDEX
Aar River, 167 Aayn il Kebira, 89 Aayn Taiba, 89 Abbeville, 21, 109, 315 Abbots Langley, 315 Abdelali, 88 Aber Beniguet, 315 Aberdare, 187 Abergavenny, 187 Abergele, 187 Abervrack, 187 n.
Aberystwith, 187 Abono River, 155 Abridge, 207, 342 w., 397 Abury, 398 Achelous, 78 w.
Acheron, 78 n.
Acqui, 399 Acre, 400 Acton, 236, 249 Acton-Turville, 150 Adana, 83 n.
Adige River, 159, 342 Adra, 85 Adria, 324, 405 Adrianople, 296 Adstock, 397 Adyn Tor, 173 n.
Aes or Aese River, 158
Aff River, 154
Africa, 50, 72 and w., 391 n.
Agulhas, Cape, 39
Agylla, 82
Ahr River, 167
Ain-as, 98
Aire River, 167
Aislingen, 123
Aithsthing, 280
Aithsvoe, 135
Aix la Chapelle, 316, 399
Ajaccio, 89
Ajalon, 401
Akeman Street, 190, 194 m., 399 n,
Akhtag Mountains, 407
Akka, 337
Alalein Glacier, 96
Alan River, 165
Albania, 76, 408
Albany, 37, 393, 408
Albemarle Sound, 37
Albigna, 98 Albion, 76, 408 Alborge, 93 Albuera, 92 Albufeira, 93 Albury, 195, 398 Alcacova, 93 Alcala, 63 w., 92, 93, 96 Alcana, 93 Alcantara, 93 Alcara, 88 Alcarria, 93 Alcazar, 93
Alcester, 165 w., 197, 255, 398 Aldea, 93 Alderney, 147 Aldersholt^ 326 Aldershot, 251, 326 Aldgate, 265 Aldrich, 137 Aldrup, 127 n.
Alencthun, 100 n., in Alessandria, 295 w. Alexandretta, 295 Alexandrov, 295 n.
Alfidena, 87 Algarbe, 71, 93, 397 Algeziras, Bay of, 90 and n. Alghero, 89 Algidus, Mount, 404 Algiers, 90 n.
Algoa Bay, 39, 92 Alhambra, 92, 93 Alicant, 92 Alife, 87 Allan River, 165 Alleghany, 30 Allen River, 165 Allerton, 207 Allwen River, 165 Almaden, 93 Almagel, 96 Almanza, 92, 93 Almarez, 92 Almaro River, 87 Almazara, 93 Almazen, 93 Almeida, 92, 93 Almena, 93 Ain River 165 w., 166
437
Words and Places
438
Alnwick, 134, 245, 256
Alps, The, 50, 52, 53, 95, 4o8 w.
Alpux arras, 93
Alqueria, 93
Alresford, 131, 249, 261
Alsace, 50, 66, 69
Alsatia, 59 w., 66 *
Althing, 279 Althorp, 127, 398 Altmark, 200 Altmiihl, 345 Alton, 398 Altona, 100 236
Altorf, 127 398
Altrans, 52 w.
Alum Bay, 400 Alvaschein, 98 Alvenen, 98 Alverstoke, 102 Amathe, 83 n.
Amazons fover, 39 Ambleston, 140 Ambresbury, 195, 294 and n. America, 26
Amersham, 21 1, 212, 340 Ameselum, 83 w.
Ampurias, 335 w.
Amsteg, 162 w., 397 Amwas, 337 Anab, 403 Anatolia, 70-71 Ancona, 404 Andalusia, 67, 70 and n.
Andermat, 162 w., 178 w., 342 n., 397 Andes, 30, 39, 400 Anesel, 83 ».
Aney River, 154 Angle, 140 Anguilla, 404 Anna River, 37 Annam, 397 Annandale, 128 «.
Annapolis, 37 Anne River, 154 Antakieh, 295 and n.
Antibes, 342 Antilibanus, 397 Anton River, 154 Antwerp, 389 Anxiety Point, 42 Aosta, 295, 343 Aoust, 295, 343 Apennines, 169, 407 Apollonia, 308 Apollonis, 308 Appleby, 250, 331
Appledore, 248, 319 and n., 331 and n.
Appledurcombe, 174, 248, 331
Applegarth, no, 146, 250, 331 Applethwaite, 247, 250, 331 Appleton, loi, 236, 250 Aquitania, 57, 67, 91 Aradus, 23, 81, 399 Aral, 65
Ar-ar-ar River, 167 Arar River, 167 Arbela River, 83 n.
Arbengo, 120 Arbroath, 187 n.
Archangel, 314 w.
Arc River, 167 Ardagh, 173 Arden, 173
Arden Forest, 173, 244, 327 Ardennes, 173 Ardetz, 52 Ardfert, 173 Ardfinnan, 312 Ardglass, 173 Ardingley, 107 Ardington, 107 Ardnamurchar, 173 Ardrossan, 172, 173 Ards, 173
Ardwick le Street, 190 Are River, 167 Argam, 114 w.
Argentine Republic, 55 and w. Argos, 77, 337
Argyle, 63, 67, 78 n., 186, 397 Arkansas, 30 Arkos, 85 Arlberg, 401
Arles, 78 162 M., 173, 397
Arley, 401
Armagh, 78 w., 177
Armeanagh, 173
Armenia, 65, 69, 364
Armorica, 62, 78 and n., 162 w., 397
Arnesthing, 280
Arram, 114 n., 264
Arran, 173
Arras, 109, 117, 175, 264, 343, 369
Arrecife, 93
Arre River, 167
Arro River, 167
Arrow River, 167
Artois, 67, 109, 175, 373
Arundel, 128 n.
Arveiron River, 167 Arve River, 167 Arw River, 167 Asbeach, 158, 322 Ascension, 28 Ascurum, 83 w.
Asgarby, 105 Asgardby, 133, 303
Index
439
Ashbourne, 158, 163 Ashby, 127, 133, 248 Ashby-de-la-Zouch, 150, 212 Ashford, 192, 261 Ashley River, 37 Ash River, 158 Ashton, 236, 248, 249 Asia, 71, 72 n.
Asia Minor, 72 n.
Asse River, 159 Asta, 182, 183 w.
Asteguieta, 182 Asti, 361 Astigarraga, 182 Astobiza, 182 Aston-Canteloupe, 150 Astorga, 182 Astulez, 182
Asturia, 46, 182 and w., 183 n.
Atford, 342 n., 397
Athelney, 120 n., 217, 286
Athens, 277, 308
Athos, Mount, 71
Atrecht, 343
Atri, 324
Attica, 288
Attlebury, 292
Auch, 295, 343
Auckland, 42
Augia, 295
Augsburg, 283, 343
Augst, 295, 343
Aulne River, 166
Aune River, 154
Auney River, 154
Auppegard, 146
Ausocurro, 83 n.
Aust, 295, 343 Austin friars, 271 Austria, 397 Autun, 170, 295, 332 Auvergne, 67 n., 94, 173 Avalon, 331
Avenbanna River, 154, 166 Avenbui River, 154 Avengorm River, 154 Avenmore River, 154 Aven River, 154 Avernus, Lake, 349 Avia River, 155 Avon Rivers, 153, 154, 255 Avono River, 155 Avranches, 187 n.
Awe River, 154 Axams, 52 n.
Axelholme, 322 Axe River, 158, 159, 256 Axholme, 322 Axminster, 158, 262, 315
Aylesbere, 141, 234 Aylesbury, 21 1, 214, 233, 303 Aylesford, 192, 214, 293, 303 Aylstone, 303 Ayr River, 167 Aysgarth, 242, 303 Aystrope, 134 Aysworth, 303 Azores, 401
Baalbec, 307 Baal Hills, 301
Bab-el-Mandeb, 404 ,
Back Brook, 42, 139 Bactria, 70 Badajoz, 295, 343 Baden, 69, 123 n., 206 Badshot, 326 Baesippo, 85 n.
Baffin’s Bay, 32
Bagshot, 251, 326, 331, 401
Bahia, 39
Bain River, 166
Bakewell, 215, 258, 340, 399
Balaclava, 403
Balcon Lane, 266 n.
Balderby, 301
Balder ton, 301
BMe, 404
Balearic Isles, 74, 85 and n.
Baleby, 137
Balerium, 302
Balfrain, 97
Ballybegg, 396
Balmaghie, 395
Baltimore, 36, 393
Bamborough, 21 1, 233, 292
Bampton, 236, 237, 248, 340
Bana River, 165
Banda Oriental, 55 and n.
Bandribosc, 147
Bane River, 166
Banias, 308
Bann River, 166
Banningham, 106
Banon River, 154, 165
Bantam, 363
Barbadoes, %ioi
Barbary, 351, 364
Barbican, 266, 273 and n.
Barbuda, 401
Barcelona, 85
Barfleur, 147
Barfreestone, 340
Bari, 87
Baring, 42
Barking, 104, 216
Barlinghem, 123
Barmouth, 187, 345
44° Words
Bamby, 132 Barneyhouse, 138 Barnstaple, 221, 234, 335 Barnston, 138 Bamstrup, 127 n.
Barn wood, 331 Barrow, 42 Barry, 139 Barton, loi n., 236 Basing, 107, 116, 118 Basingstoke, 102, 253 Bass’s Strait, 41 Basta, 183 «.
Batavia, 40, 77 and n.
Bath, 201, 206, 372, 399 Bathurst, 42 Batle Hill, 287 Battersea, 259, 270, 353 Battle, 23, 285 Battlebridge, 23 n., 285 Battlebury, 195, 286 Battledikes, 287 Battlefield, 284 and n.
Battleflats, 23, 284, 285 Battlesbury, 286 Battleswick, 131 w.
Battlewic, 286 Baune River, 166 Bavaria, 48, 65, 68 Bavay, 343 Bavent, 322 Bayswater, 269 and ».
Beachy Head, 346 Beacon Hill, 334 Beaminster, 262, 315 Bear, 141 Beara, 141 Beardon, 141 Bearon, 141 Beauchamp-Otton, 149 Beaulieu, 149, 263 Beaumanoir, 149 n.
Beaumont, 149 Bebra, 332 Beddgelert, 31 1 Bedford, 185 n,, 261, 292 ».
Bedis, 83 n.
Bedminster, 262, 315 Beelow, 406 Beer, 141, 234 Beer Alston, 141, 234 Beer Ferrers, 141, 234 Behring’s Straits, 41 Beja, 296, 343 Belan, 301 Belan Bank, 301 Belch, 301
Bel^ade, 170 w., 406 Belippo, 85 w.
and Places
Bellecombe, 174 Bell Hill, 301 Belon, 85 Belting, 107 Bel Tor, 302 Belvoir, 149, 263 Benadadid, 93 Benarraba, 93 Benavites, 93 Bencruachan, 170 Benevento, 87, 177 Bengorm, 406 Beniajar, 93 Beniaux, 93 Benicalaf, 93 Benledi, 169 Benlomond, 170 Benmore^ 169, 396 Ben Nevis, 22, 169, 407 Ben River, 166 Bentarique, 93 Ben wy vis, 170 Bere Regis, 141, 234 Berewood, 141 Bergamo, 98 n., 103 n.
Berkeley, 243, 249 Berlingas Islands, 148 Berlinghen, in, 123 Bermondsey, 270, 317 Bermudas, 38 Berne, 52 69, 401
Berquetot, 146
Berwick, 130, 134, 142, 187, 207,
233, 245
Bessingham, 120 n., 123 Bethany, 314 Bethel, 20 n.
Bethlehem, 20 n.
Bethsaida, 81 n.
Bevercoates, 332 Beverley, 243, 252, 332, 400 Be verst one, 332 Bewley, 347 Beyroute, 41 1 Bezingham, 123 Bibersburg, 332 Bibracte, 332 Bibrax, 332 Biddenham, 103 n.
Bideford, 141 Bidis, 83 n.
Bielawa, 406 Bielouka, 407 Biere, He de, 148 Bierlingen, 123 Bievre, 332 Billinge, 107 Billingham, 107 Billinghurst, 107, 320
Index
441
Billingley, 107 Billingsgate, 107 267
Billington, 107 Billockby, 132 Bingen, 124 n.
Birbeck, 147 Bircholt, 402 Birkenhead, 139 Billing, 123, 216 Birlingham, in, 123 Birmingham, 104, 237, 367 Birnwood, 172 Bishopsgate, 19 1 Bishopsley, 315 Bishops Stortford, 315 Bissingen, 123 Biturgia, 183 n.
Biverbike, 332 Black Forest, 302, 304 n. Blackfriars, 352 Blackheath, 344 n., 406 Blake Chesters, 195 Blakeley, 406 Blancnez, Cape, 405 Blaskogiheidi, 325 Blauvelt, 37 Blauwberg, 38 Bledloe, 215, 285 Blisadona, 52 w.
Bloodgate, 287 Bloody Brook, 30 Bloody Fold, 284 Bloody Stripe, 286 Bloomsbury, 275, 353 Blowick, 137 Blimham, 103 n.
Bobem, 332 Boberow, 332 Bober River, 332 Bobersburg, 332 Boberwitz, 332 Bobrau, 332 Boca Chica, 396 Bochampton, 329 Bdchingen, 123 Bocking, 123 Bodmin, 416 Bohemia, 48, 68 Bokerly Ditch, 194 Bolbec, 147 Bolengo, 120 Bolingbroke, 120 Bolivia, 70 BoUeit, 284 Bologna, 68 n. Bolton-le-Moor, 149 n, Bombay, 39, 403 Bomlitz hQver, 48 Boothia Felix, 42
Bordeaux, 361 Borneville, 145 Bornum, 103 n.
Bosa, 82 Boscawen, 416 Boston, 30, 133, 340, 393 Bosworth, 102, 243 Botle Hill, 287 Bouquinghem, 123 Bourbon, 68 n.
Bovanium, 68 n.
Bovengo, 120 Bovington, 120 Bovy in Beer, 141 Bowness, 137 Bozra, 348 Brabant, 77 and «.
Brading, 104 Bradley, 396 Bradney, 320 Bradshaw, 396 Bradwell, 128, 258 Braganga, 39 Braintree, 172, 175 w.
Bramerton, 292
Bramshot, 252, 326
Brancaster, 113, 171, 172, 196, 255
Brandenburg, 49, 172, 347 n.
Brandon, 172
Brannberg, 172
Braslaf, 402
Bray, 68
Brazil, 39, 44, 359 and n., 363 Breandown, 172 Breidafiord, 136 Breitwil, 128 n.
Brendenkopf, 172 Brendon, 172 Brenner, 172 Brentingley, 106 Brent Tor, 173 n.
Brescia, 120 Bretha River, 137 n.
Breton, Cape, 36 Breuil, 325 Bricquebosq, 147 Bridewell, 269
Bridgewater, 212, 233, 261, 346 Briggate, 19 1 Brighton, 212, 340 Brindon Hill, 164 Briquebec, 147 Brisbane, 42 Bristol, 192, 260, 369 Britain, Great, 56, 80, 85, 288 Brixton, 192, 340 Broadford, 136 Brodswinden, 48 n,
Brogden, 331
Words and Places
442
Broglio, 325 Brokenborough, 232, 401 Brolo, 325 Bromley, 243, 250 Brookland, 319 Brookljm, 37 Brora, 135 Brother Hill, 140 Brough, 103 and n.
Broughton, 103 n., 235, 257 Brown Willy, 345 Broxbourne, 331, 401 Brunswick, 69 Bruquedalle, no, 147 Brussels, 369 Buccina, 82 n,
Buckenham, 292 Buckhurst, 230 Buckingham, 104, 185 w., 237 Buckland Monachorum, 315 Bucklersbury, 272 Buckston, 140 Buda, 416 Budge Row, 269 Buenos Ayres, 403 Buers, 141 n.
Bulgaria, 65 Bull How, 138 Bungay, 347, 403 Burengaren, 347 n.
Bures, 141 w., 146 Burgh, 103, 195 Burghclere, 417 Burgos, 103 n., 120 Burgundy, 50, 67, 373 Burn, 141 Burrafiord, 135 Burry Holmes, 139 Burton, loi, 219, 228, 234, 236 Bury-Pommeroye, 150 Buttergill, 138, 245 Butterhill, 138, 140 Butterlip How, 138 Buttermere, 138, 248 Byestock, 141 Byfleet, 206 Byzantium, 342
Cabala, 83 «.
Cabo de Bona Esperanza, 40 Cabool, 69
Cabo Torment oso, 40 Cadara, 88 Cadbeeston, 327 Cadbury, 287 Cadiz, 81, 84, 91 Cadoxton, 312 n.
Caen, 114, 115^ 119 Caere, 82
Caergybi, 197, 312 n, Caerleon, 189 n., 197, 198 Caermote, 278 Caerwent, 177, 197 Csesar’s Camp, 293 Cagliari, 82 Caig Stone, 287 and n. Cairngorm, 406 Cairo, 67 w., 403, 404 n. Caithness, 48, 135 Calahorra, 93 Calais, 62, 109 Calamonaci, 88 Calasca, 96 Calascibetta, 88 Calata, 63 w., 96 Calatabiano, 88 Calatafimi, 88 Calatagirone, 88 Calatamisetta, 88 Calatavutura, 88 Calatayud, 93 Calatrava, 93 Calcutta, 307 Calda River, 137 n,
Caldicot, 194, 404 Caldy, 139 Caledonia, 63 Calf, The, 137 Calf of Man, 148, 344 Calicut, 307, 363, 367 Calliste, 404 Calotabalotta, 88 Caltamisetta, 88 Caltrop, 404 Camaroons, 401 Cambeck River, 167 Cambrai, 67 n.
Cambray, 343
Cambria, 67 and w., 76, 369 Cambridge, 185 w., 192 and n
331
Cambrilla, 67 n,
Camden, 167, 231 Camil River, 167 Camlad River, 167 Camlin River, 167 Camon River, 167 Camp hill, 286 Campton, 287 Cam River, 167 Cana, 403 Canada, 30, 353 Canary, 361, 363, 401 Candahar, 295 Candy Slack, 346 Canewdon, 285 Canonbury, 270 Cariongate, 19 1
261,
Index
443
Canon Street, 352 Cantaleu, 147
Canterbury, 66, 206, 222, 233, 289, 386
Cantire, 170 Capel Curig, 316 Capo di Faro, 333 Caradoc, 293 Caralis, 82, 83 n.
Carbia, 82 n.
Cardross, 172, 197 Carepula, 83 n.
Carinthia, 76 n.
Carisbrook, 66, 289, 291, 340 Carlingford, 129, 142 Carlisle, 185, 329 n.
Carlsruhe, 296 Carlton-Colvile, 149 Carmarthen, 171, 197 Carnchainichin, 294 Camic Alps, 173 Carolina, 23, 37 and n.
Caroline Islands, 38 Carpathians, 50, 69 n., 76 n., 409 Carpentaria, Gulf, 40 Carpi, 83 n.
Carquebuf, 146 Carrickfergus, 172 Carrowburgh, 195 Carteja, 84 Cartenna, 83 n.
Carthage, 72, 83, 84, 348 Carthagena, 23, 84 Cartili, 83 n.
Cashiobury, 68 Cassaro, 88 Castalo, 85 n.
Castanaea, 357 Castel Muro, 98 and n.
Castile, 67 n., 198 and n.
Castlegate, 19 1 Castor, 196, 197 n.
Catalamita, 88 Catalonia, 67 Catania, 83 Caterham, 191, 287 Caterthun, 287 Catlow, 327 Cat Street, 289 Cattegat, 191^.
Catt Stane, 287 and n.
Caucasus, 22, 51, 407 Caudebec, 147 Cause well, 134 Cayenne, 359 Cefn Br5m, 168 Cefn Coed, 168 Cenis, Mount, 170 n,
Cerasus, 356
Certima, 85 «.
Cevennes (les), 168 Chablis, 361 Chadra, 88 Champagne, 361 Champlain, Lake, 36 Cham River, 167 Chapmanslades, 335 Charford, 261, 291 Charing, 216, 267 Charles, Cape, 33, 44 Charleston, 37, 220, 393 Charlinch, 320 Charmis, 82 n.
Charter-house, 270, 352 Chart Sutton, 326 w.
Chatham Island, 42 n.
Chat Moss, 327
Cheapside, 221, 272 and m., 273, 335 Chee Tor, 173 n.
Chelmsford, 158, 185 n., 256, 261 Chelsea, 259, 270, 317 Cheping Hill, 335 Chepstow, 221, 335 Cherbourg, 103 n., 295 w.
Cherokee, 30
Cher River, 168
Cherry Hinton, 397
Chertsey, 317
Chester, 133, 189 n., 190
Chesterholm, 195, 197
Chester-le-Street, 149 n., 190, 197
Chesterton, 196, 197 n.
Chevening, 168 Chevin, 168 Chevington, 116, 168 Cheviot Hills, 168 Chevy Chase, 168 Chichester, 196, 212, 291 Chien, Cape, 168 Chilham, 293 Chili, 359
Chillesford, 129, 132 China, 70, 359 Chingford, 192 Chipping Barnet, 221, 335 Chipping Camden, 221, 335 Chippingham, 221, 335 Chipping Norton, 221, 335 Chipping Ongar, 221, 335 Chipping Sodbury, 221, 335 Chisbury, 195, 291 Chiselet, 318 Chiselhurst, 326 «.
Chiswill, 134 Christiana, 296 Christiansand, 296 Christianstad, 296 Church Moor, 329
Words and Places
444
Church Walk, 329 Chynoweth, 175 n.
Cima del Moro, 96 Cinderford, 332 Cinderhill, 332 Cinici, 85 n.
Cirencester, 197, 255, 340 Cirta, 83 n.
Cissanham, 291 Cissbury, 291 Civita Vecchia, 398 Clapham, 289, 395 Clare, 154, 274 Clarendon, 171 Classe, 324 Claverack, 37 n.
Claxby, 133
Clerkenwell, 268, 269
Clinton, 396
Clippesby, 132
Clitourps, 146
Clitumnus River, 167
Clobesden Gut, 19 1
Cloyd River, 167
Cludan River, 167
Clwyd River, 167
Clydach River, 167
Clyde River, 67, 167, 186 and n.
Cnut’s Dyke, 194
Coblentz, 342 *
Cockthorpe, 134 Coimbra, 67 n.
Coitmore, 327 Colby, 137
Colchester, 196, 198, 255, 256 Col de Maure, 95 Cold Harbour, 193, 404 Coleridge, 227, 404 Colincthun, 100 n., in Colne River, 158, 168, 256 Cologne, 69, 198 Colomby, 146 Colonna, Cape, 333 Colonsay, 31 1 Colton, 404 Columbia, 26, 393 Columbus, 26, 38 Comarques, 200 Combe, 174, 244 Combe Martin, 173 Comberbatcli, 128 n., 257 Como, Lake, 97, 174 Compton Bay, 174, 235 Concord, 29 Coningsby, 218, 283 Connecticut, 30 Connington, 120 n.
Constance, 296 Constantineh, 296
Constantinople, 34, 70, 128 n., 342, 343
Constanz, 296, 343 Contrebia, 175 n,
Conz, 296, 343 Cooper River, 37 Copland Island, 142, 335 Copmansthorpe, 127, 335 Cordova, 85, 91, 368 Corinth, 358 Cornus, 82 n.
Cornwall, 62, 185 w., 201, 369 Corsica, 78, 82, 89 Cortona, 170 n., 197, 337 n. Corunna, Cape, 334 Cotantin, 296, 343 Cotswold Hills, 327 Cot tun, 1 15 Courtray, 343 Coutances, 296 Covene^ 322 Covent Garden, 270 Cowgate, 1 91 Co wick, 1 41 Cowley, 400 Cranboume, 331, 401 Cranfield, 331 Crantock, 312 n.
Crathis, 82
Cravatta, 203
Creamston, 140
Cressing Temple, 316
Crete, So and n., 68, 81, 82, 365
Crib Goch, 406
Crick, 172
Cricklade, 172, 257
Criquebuf, 146
Criquetot, 146
Crodale, 147
Croixdale, 147
Croker, 42
Crokern Tor, 278
Cronkshynnagh, 332
Crown Hill, 284
Crutched Friars, 271 and n,
Cuba, 360
Cuckfield, 326 and n.
Cumberland, 48, 51, 67, 76, 174, 175, 185 and w., 201, 222 Ctunbray Islands, 67 Cummin’s Camp, 294 Cumnor, 260 Cunici Bocchorum, 85 w.
Cunning Garth, 346 Cunusi, 82 ».
Cura, 83 w.
Curubis, 83 ft.
Curum, 83 n,
Cvetaghara, 407
Index
445
Cwm Bechan, 244 Cydon, 357
Dacorum Hundred, 134, 228 Dairan River, 155 Dalby, 137 Dale, 140
Dalkeith, 128 n., 171 Dalkey Island, 142 Dalpool, 138 Dairy, 171, 294 Dalrymple, 128 n.
Damascus, 336, 367 Damme, 324 Dampier Archip, 40, 41 Danby, 202 Danderby, 133 Danebury, 286 Danefurlong, 134 Dane River, 162 Danesbanks, 286 Danesend, 134 Danesey Flats, 131 Danesford, 286 Danesgraves, 286 Danestal, 147 Danestream, 285 Dantsey, 260, 286 Danube River, 49, 69, 153 n., 159, 161, 162
Darling River, 42 Dametal, 147
Dartford, 156 w., 192, 256, 261
Dart River, 156 and n., 256
Daubeuf, 146
Dauphiny, 75
Daventry, 177
Davis’ Straits, 32
Davon River, 162 and n.
Dax, 399 Dead Man, 345 Deadman’s Place, 352 Dead Sea, 349 Dean River, 162 Deargan River, 155 Debir, 20 n.
Dee River, 149, 154, 168 Deeping, 397 Deerhurst, 400 Dekkan, 71 Delapre, 149
Delaware, State of, 36, 37 Delgado, Cape, 39 Delting, 280 Denge Marsh Gut, 191 Dengewell, 280 Dengey, 131 Denmark, 200 Denney, 139
Dennisinni, 89 Dent du Midi, 408 Depedal, 147 Deptford, 129, 131 Derby, 126, 127 w., 134, 140, 183 n., 327, 400 Dereham, 400 Derry, 23 Derventio, 156 n.
Derwent River, 156 and n. Desolation Cape, 32 Detmold, 278 Detroit, 36, 405 Devil’s Dyke, 194, 303 Devizes, 201
Devon, 68, 184, 185 202, 364
Devon River, 163
Dewerstone, 299
Dibden, 397
Dieppe, 146
Dieppedal, 147
Dietmale, 278
Diggles River, 166 n.
Dili, 337 n.
Dingley, 28l Dingwall, 280 Dingwell, 14 1, 281 Dinsdale, 281 Distel Alp, 96 Ditton, 194 n., 236, 241 Djebel-esh-Sheikh, 22, 407 Dniester River, 156, 159, 161, 162, 165
Doab River, 153 n., 399 Dodd Fell, 41 1 Doghouse Bar, 268 Dominica, 27 Dona, 37 Donegal, 63 Donnington, 120 n.
Don River, 159, 161, 162 Dora River, 156 Dorchester, 68, 156, 196 and «.
Dore River, 155 Dorking, 104 Dornstadt, 170 Doro River, 155
Dorset, 66, 175, 183, 185 and n., 222
Douglas, 406
Douglas River, 166
Douro River, 156
Dour River, 155
Dourwater, 163
Douvres, 113, 115
Dover, 109, 113
Dovercourt, 113
Dove River, 154
Dover River, 155
Dovrefjeld, 113
Words and Places
446
Dowgate, 267 Dowles River, 166 Drachenfels, 303 w. Drachenkammer, 303 n,
Drepanum, 350, 404 Dreswick, 137 Droitwich, 333 Dromore, 410 Drontheim, 282 Drumburgh, 195 Dublin, 166, 406 Dubrau, 402 Duir River, 155 Dulas River, 153, 166 Dumbarton, 171, 195 Dumblane, 171 Dumbuckhill, 195 Dumfries, 171 Dummerwitz, 346 Dumnailraise, 294 Dunagoat, 345 Dundalk, 171 Dundas, 42 Dundee, 171 Dundrum, 17 1 Dundry Hill, 171 Dunestadt, 170 Dungannon, 171 Dungarvon, 171 Dungeness, 139, 142, 404 Dunglas, 195 Dunkeld, 171 Dunlavin, 17 1 Dunleary, 17 1
Dunmow, 171, 178 186 n.
Dun River, 162
Dunstable, 171, 178 221, 335
Dunwich, 132 Durar water River, 155 Durbach, 156, 163 Durbeck, 155, 163 Durham, 132 w., 185 n., 237, 238, 340 and n.
Durlock, 318 w.
Durra River, 155 Dusseldorf, 127 n.
Dwajalagiri, 22, 407 Dyrham, 400
Eamont River, 137 ».
Ea River, 137 n.
Earnley, 401 Easeburn, 158, 163 Eastbourne, 345 Eastbury, 396 Eastcheap, 272 Easter, Good, 302 Easter, High, 302 Easterford, 302
Easterleake, 302 Eastermear, 302 Easthorpe, 13 1, 396 Easton, 396 Ebbfleet, 266 w., 318 Ebro River, 91 Eccles, 262, 316 Ecuador, 55 and w., 70 Eden River, 162 Edgeware, 340
Edinburgh, 206, 212, 233, 292 Edmundsthorpe, 142 Egilsa, 136
Egypt, 34, 43, 73 87, 97
Ehen River, 154 Ehrenbreitstein, 396 Eigher, 408 Eilum, 103 n.
Eisenberg, 332 Eislingen, 123 Ekaterinenburg, 296 Elbach, 331
Elbe River, 49, 159, 166 Elboeuf, 146 Elisabethstadt, 49 Elizabeth County, 34, 44 El Khalil, 315 El Lazarieh, 314 Ellee River, 166 Ellen River, 166 Ellerton, 249 Ellwangen, 331 Elmdon, 402 Elmswell, 402 Elsass, 59 n., 66 Elstead, 291 and n,
Elston, 398 Elstrop, 134 Elton, 217, 398 El win River, 165 Ely, 260, 401 Enderby, 133 England, 67 English- Batch, 200 Englishcombe, 200 and ». Enhallow, 310 Ennerdale, 138 En Rimmon, 403 Epegard, 146 Ephesus, 71, 72 Ephratah, 20 n.
Eppinghofen, 124 n,
Epsom, 238, 340, 366 Erebus, Mount, 42 w.
Erie, Lake, 30, 36 Erin, 65 Erith, 322 n,
Ermin Street, 190, 194 w. Erpingham, 120 n.
Index
447
Erringham, 107, iii Errington, 107 Erve River, 167 Eryn River, 160 Erzeroum, 69 Erzgeberge, 332 Escalona, 84 Esca River, 158 Escoves, 147 Escurial, 389 n.
Esker River, 158 Eskilstuiia, 100 n.
Eskle River, 158
Esk River, 157, 362
Eskwater, 163
Esky River, 158
Eslinghen, 123
Esque River, 159
Essex, 131, 202, 222, 331, 396
Este, 324
Etainhus, 115
Etaples, 335
Etna, 83, 87, 164, 324
Eton, 317
Etreham, 115
Etsch River, 159, 342
Eu, 147
Euboea, 77
Europe, 71
Evan River, 153
Eveneny River, 154
Evershaw, 331
Evershot, 331, 400
Eversley, 252, 331, 400
Evert on, 331
Evolena, Valley of, 52
Evora, 85
Ewenny River, 154
Ewes River, 158
Ewshot, 326
Exe River, 158, 256
Exeter, 158, 185, 196 w., 197, 255
Ex River, 158, 362
Exwick, 141
Eye, no, 137, 260
Eyen, 96
Facomb, 174 Faenza, 404 Fairfield, 319, 400 Falaise, 146 Falkirk, Carse of, 21 Farnham, 238, 250 Faro, Capo di, 333 Faroe Islands, 136 w., 400 Farringdon, 171 Faulhorn, 408 Faxa Fiord, 129 n.
Fear, Cape, 31 w.
Feasegate, 191 Fee, 97 n.
Felibedjik, 295 Felicudi, 81 Felmersham, 103 n.
Fenwick Rock, 139 Ferrara, 342 Feurs, 342 Fiamma, 342 Fife, 78, 134 ■
Filby, 132 Finedon, 281 Finiki, 81 Finmark, 200 Finsbury, 265 Finster-aar-horn, 344 n. Finsthwaite, 202 and n., 247 Fiora, 296, 342 Fiquefleur, 147 Firenze, 342 Fishergate, 19 1 Fishguard, 140, 146, 314 Fisigard, 141 Fitful Head, 346 Fiume della Fine, 201 Flamandville, 204 Flamborough Head, 233, 334 Flanders, 62, 72 n.
Flash, 388 Flatholme, 139 Fleckeroe, 132 n.
Fleckney, 132 n.
Fleet, 257, 266, 269 Flegg, 132 Flekkesfjord, 132 n.
Flemingsby, 202 Flemingston, 140, 150 Flemington, 150 Fleswick, 137 Florence, 404 Florida, 27, 36, 44, 344 n. Flushing, 37 Fond du Lac, 36 Fontarabie, 94 Forcassi, 342 Fordongianus, 342 Fordwick, 318 and n.
Foreness, 131
Foret des Maures, 95
Forli, 296, 342
Forlimpopoli, 342
Formosa, 39, 403
Fomovo, 342
Fort Enterprise, 42
Fort Orange, 37
Fort Providence, 42
Fortress Monroe, 34
Fossombrone, 342
Fossway, The, 190 and 194 n.
448 Words and Places
Foulbec, 147 Foulbeck, 400 Foulness, 131 Foulney, 137 Foxhill, 400 Foxley, 400
Fraisthorpe, 299 and n, France, 67, 288 France, Isle of, 118 Franche Comt6, 50, 69 Franconia, 67, 122 Frankby, 138, 202 and n. Frankenfeld, 204 Frankenthal, 204 Frankfurt, 204 F'rathorpe, 299 Freasley, 299 and «. Fredenberg, 38 Frederick City, 37 Fredericksburg, 37 Fr6jus, 95, 296, 342 Frendenbach, 345 Freystrop, 140 Friday Street, 299 Fridaythorpe, 299 Friedrichshafen, 296 Frieston, 202 n.
Frisby, 202 and n.
Frismersk, 114 w.
Fritham, 255, 329 Friuli, 296, 342, 343 Frobisher Strait, 31 Frome River, 168, 256 Frotuna, 100 n.
Fulletby, 133 Funen, 403
Furness, 137, 222, 334 and ». Fur Tor, 173 n.
Fury Beach, 42 and n.
Galapagos, 401 Galata, 63 w., 88 n.
Galatia, 63 Galicia, 63, 91, 12 1 Gallipoli, 342 Galloway, 63, 364 Galway, 63 Gar a River, 165 Garbo, 89
Gareloch River, 165 Garnar River, 165 Garnere River, 165 Garonne River, 153, 154, 165 Garra, 83 n.
Garry River, 153, 165 Garve River, 165 Garway River, 160, 165 Garwick, 137 Gatcombe, 174, 19 1
Gateholm, 139 Gatesgarth, 138 Gatesgill, 138
Gateshead, 192, 21 1, 252, 344 n. Gateswater, 138 ^Gatton, 191 Gaza, 336, 367 Gazzi, 88 Gebel, 87 Gebel Fiel, 348 Gebel Oomar, 89 Gellstone, 138 Geliys wick, 139 Geneva, 51, 170 362
Gennesareth, 403 Georgia, 23, 37 Germany, 47, 67 72, 100
Gers River, 165 Geysers, 399 Ghuzzeh, 337 n.
Gibeah, 409 Gibel el Faro, 333 Gibellina, 87 Gibraltar, 90 Gillies Hill, 284 Giron River, 165 Glamorgan, 78 Glarus, 313 Glaslin, 166 Glenmore, 396 Glen River, 168 Glogau, 171
Gloucester, 17^, 185 and n., 197
255, 340
Glyde River, 167 Gniva, 53 n.
Godarville, 145 Godington, loi Godley, 309
Godmanch ester, 196, 309 Godmanstone, 309 Godney, 263, 309 Godramgate, 19 1 Godrano, 88 Godshill, 263, 309 Godstone, 19 1, 309 Godstow, 309 Goello, 63 Goldberg, 332 Gold Coast, 400 Gomfreston, 140 Gomphi, 405 Gomshall, 174 Gonengo, 120 Good Easter, 302 Goodgrave, 327
Good Hope, Cape of, 22, 405, 408
Goodmanham, 308 and n.
Index
449
Gorlitz, 410 Gothland Island, 67 Gracechurch Street, 272, 352 Gracedieu, 149 Graian Alps, 173 and n, Grammercy Square, 353 Grampound, 347, 396 Granada, 91 and n,
Granville, 396 Grassholm, 139 Gravenhill, 286 Gravesend, 340 Greasby, 138 Great Chesters, 195 Greece, 43, 79 Greenaby, 137 Greenland, 26 Greenwich, 131, 246 Greenwich, 137 .Grenivik, 131 n Grenoble, 296, 342 Gressonay, 53 Greta River, 137 n.
Grime’s Dyke, 195 Grimonville, 145 Grimsby, 105, 126 and n., 141, 246, 395
Grim’s Dyke, 194 Grinez, Cape, 405 Grinnell Land, 42 Grisons, 52, 53, 62 Groeden, 52 w.
Groote Eylandt, 40 Guadaira, 92 Guadaladiar, 92 Guadalaviar, 92 Guadalaxara, 92 Guadalbanar, 92 Guadalcazar, 92 Guadalertin, 92 and n, Guadalete, 92 Guadalhorra, 92 Guadalimar, 92 Guadalquiton, 92 Guadalquiver, 91, 92, 396 Guadalupe, 92, 339 n. Guadarama, 92 Guadarranke, 92 Guadiana, 85, 91, *92, 155 Gualbacar, 92 Guaroman, 92
Guernsey, 147, 295 w., 358, 371 Guer River, 165 Gufidaun, 52 ».
Guilford, 192 Gulistan, 403 Gutter Lane, 352 Gweek, 14 1 Gwent, 177
Haarlem River, 37 Hackney, 320, 372 Haconby, 105, 145 Haconville, 127, 145 Hacqueville, 145 Haddington, 104, 185 w. Hasmus, 22, 407 Hafnafiord, 129 n., 139 n. Hagiar Chem, 83 Hagnaby, 133 Hague, The, 102 Haiti, 338 Hal, 333 Halen, 333 Halifax, 37 Haling, 333 Hall, 333 Hallaton, 333 Halle, 333 Hallein, 333 Hallstadt, 333 Hallthwaite, 138 Halsal, 333 Halstock, 292 n.
Halton, 235, 240, 333 1, Halton Chesters, 195 Halycus River, 333 n. Halys River, 333 n. Hamath, 20 n., 336, 337 Hambye, 115, 146 Hamnavoe, 135 Hampton Court, 149 n. Hampton in Arden, 327 Hamsey, 319 Ham Tor, 302 Hamwell, 134 Hanenkamm, 304 n. Hangman’s Gains, 352 Hanover, 69 Hanse towns, 335 n. Hapsburg, 170 w., 401 Hardivilliers, 128 Hareby, 133 Hare Tor, 173 n.
Harfleur, 147 Harling, 106 Harlington, 106 Harmstone, 292 ». Haroldston, 140 Harris, 136 Harrowgate, 19 1 Hartz Mountains, 326 n, Harwich, 131, 132 n. Hasguard, 140 Hasilmere, 260 Hastingleigh, 107 Hastings, 104, 107 Hastingues, 148 Hautot, 146
Words and Places
450
Havannah, 360 Haverford, 129, 132 w., 139 Haverstraw, 37 n,
Havre, 147 n.
Hawkswell, 131 Haxey, 322 Haye Park, 102 Haystacks, The, 138 Hayti, 30 Hazor, 308 n.
Healey, 303 Healigh, 303 Hears ton, 140 Hebron, 20 w., 336 Hecla, 399 Heidenberg, 304 ».
Helagh, 303 Helford, 14 1 Heligoland, 306 Hellathyrne, 302 Hellifield, 292 w., 302 Helluland, Litla, 26 Helluland it mikla, 26 Helsington, 106 Helwell, 303 Helwick, 139 Helwith, 302 Hemingby, 133 Hemsby, 132 Hendon, 404 Hengeston, 290 Hengistbury Head, 290 Henley, 21 1, 404 Henley in Arden, 327 Henry, Cape, 33 Henstridge, 290 Hentoe, 173 n.
Heracleopolis, 308 Herat, 65
Herbrandston, 140 Herculaneum, 308 Hercynian Forest, 326 n. Hereford, 185, 331, 364 Hermannstadt, 49 Hermanville, 115 Hermon, 409 Herouville, 145 Herringby, 132
Hertford, 164, 165 w., 192 n., 400 Hessary Tor, 173 n., 302 Hesse, 31, 67 Hestoe, 136 «.
Heuland, 115 Heurtley, 400 Heythorpe, 134 Hey Tor, 173 n.
Hieres Islands, 81 Highclere, 149 n.
High Easter, 302
Highgate, 191, 397 High Street, 190, 397 Hildersham, 292 n.
Hill Bell, 301 Himalaya, 22 Himawat, 407 Hingeston, 290 Hinkley, 290 and n.
Hinksey, 260, 290 Hinton, 220, 236, 329 Hinxworth, 290 Hippo, 81, 82, 85 Hoboken, 30 Hoc, Cape, 147 Hocheim, 361, 362 Hode, Cape le, 147 Hoff, 306
Hogue, Cape de la, 147 Holbeach, 321 Holborn, 257, 268 Holderness, 114 and w., 222 Holland, 40, 77 Holloway, 3^7 Hollym,'ii4 n.
Holm, 137 Holme, 138 Holme, East, 141 Holmes Island, 131 Holmin Island, 164 Holmsdale, 142 Holmstone, 142
Holstein, 49, 66, 123 w., 132, 325 Holt, 251, 325 Holtford, 325 Holtrup, 127 w.
Holy Hill, 306
Holy Island, 306
Holywell, 263, 269 and w., 306
Honey Hill, 140
Honfleur, 147
Hor, Mount, 409
Hoorn, or Horn, Cape, 38, 88, 344,
403
Horsehay, 102 Horseley, 290 and n.
Horsey, 290 and n., 320 Horsey Hill, 290 Horstead, 290 Houlbec, 147 Houndbere, 141 Houndsditch, 265 How Rock, 140 Hpwside, 138
Howth, Hill of, 142, 147, 165 Hucking, 106 Hudson’s Bay, 32 Hudson River, 32 Hudson’s Strait, 32 Humber River, 187, 202, 222
Index
45
Hungary, 49, 65, 67, 372 n, Himgerford, 346 Hunhart, 326 n.
Hunnum, 203 Hunstanton, 203 Huntingdon, 171, i85».,2ii Huron, I.ake, 30 Hursley, 290 n.
Hurstcourtray, 150 Hurstmonceaux, 150 Hurstpierpont, 150 Hvalfiord, 129 n.
Hvita, 406 Hythe, 319 Hythe, West, 319
Iberia, 65
Ibthrop, 142
Ickborough, 68
Icklingham, 107
Icknield Street, 190, 194 ».
Icolmkill, 309 n., 310
Idalia, 82
Idino, 170
Iffley, 317
Iken, 68
Hen River, 166
Ilford, 192
Ilfracombe, 173
Illinois, 30, 36, 340
Illston, 312 n.
Iluria, 182 Imaus, 407 Imgrund, 397 Inchcolm, 31 1 Inches, 320 Inch Island, 164 Inchmartin, 321 Inchmichael, 321 and n, Inchture, 321 Inchtuthill, 321 Inchyra, 321 India, 43, 51, 73 w.
Inglebarrow, 103 n.
Ingliston, 150 Inisfallan, 312 n.
Inkpen, 169 Inney River, 154 Inn River, 154 Inver, 187 Invermore, 187 Inycon. 83 n.
Iona, 130
Ipswich, 132 and n.
Iran, 65 Irby, 138
Ireland, 65, 100, 186 and w., 397 Ireland’s Eye, 142 Irippo, 85 n.
Irke River, 168 Isbourne, 158, 163 Iscanderieh, 295 Ise River, 159 Isis River, 158 Iskenderoon, Bay of, 295 Isle River, 158, 159 Islinghem, 122 Islington, 104, 122, 150, 268 Istamboul, 342 Istria, 159, 201
Italy, 34, 46, 50, 55, 61, 67 68 n
69, 79 n.
Itucci, 296 Iturissa, 182 Ive River, 153 Iviga, 85 w.
Ivory Coast, 400 Ivy church, 319 Iz River, 158
James River, 34, 44 Jameston, 140 Jamna, 85 w.
Janeiro, 28
Jan Meyen’s Island, 41 ava, 40 azi, 97 n.
Jedburgh, 103 233, 385
Jeffreyston, 140 Jepan, 70, 71 Jersey, 146, 371 Jerusalem, 348, 391 «.
Jervis Gut, 19 1 Johnston, 140 Jones’ Sound, 42 Jonkoping, 335 ft.
Joppa, 403
Jordan, 82
Jorveaux, 149
Juan Bermudez, 39
Juan Fernandez, 38
Jubbergate, 19 1
Jubleins, 171
Julaber’s Grave, 293
Jiilich or Juliers, 69, 296, 343
Jungfrau, 408
Jurby, 137, 213
Juterbogk, 307 n.
Jutland, 67, 132, 344
Kaisariyeh, 295 Kammerstock, 170 n.
Kamor, 170 n.
Kamp River, 167 Kam River, 167 Kansas, 30
Karavanken Alps, 173 Katskill Mountains, 37
452 Words and Places
Katzellenbogen, 124 204
Kedron, 405 Kelat, 63 n.
Kempston, 287 Kencomb, 170 Kencot, 170
Kendal, 128 n., 172, 256 Keneth, 20 n.
Kenilworth, 102 Kenmare, 170 Kenmore, 170 and n.
Kenne, 170 Kennedon,i7o Ken River, 168 Kensington, 104, 268, 395 Kent, 66, 170, 185 w., 202 Kenton, 170 Kerguellen’s Land, 41 Kesri, 295 Keswick, 137 Kettering, 104
Kettlewell, 128, 134 and w., 138, 258
Keynor, 291
Keynton, 168
Kharnburg, 170
Khelat, 88 m.
Kibotus, 148 Kidderminster, 262, 315 Kiel, 335 n.
Kielerfiord, 335 ».
Kilbar, 312 «.
Kilburn, 269 Kildanes, 286 Kildare, 309 n.
Kilkerran, 31 1 Kilkiaran, 31 1 Killaloe, 312 w.
Killin, 166, 309 n.
Kilmore, 309 w., 396 Kinderhook, 37 King Edward, 345 Kingsbury Episcopi 218, 315 King’s County, 23 King’s Gate, 191, 218, 282 King’s Lynn, 166, 218, 283 Kingston, 218, 282 Kingston- upon- Hull, 255, 283 Kinloch Ewe, 321 Kinnaird, 170 Kinross, 170 Kinsale, 170 Kinsey, 194 Kinton, 400
Kirby, 127, 131, 133, I37, 138, 246, 262, 310
Kirby Thore, 301 Kirchditmold, 278 Kirjath, 83 Kirjath Arba, 20 w.
Kirjath Sepher, 20 n.
Kirkcolm, 31 1
Kirkcudbright, 137, 185 n., 345
Kirkdale, 21
Kirkgate, 19 1
Kirklands, 316
Kit’s Coty House, 293
Klagenfurt, 296, 342
Klaussenberg, 49
Klostersieben, 398
Kloten, 198
Knap Dane, 286
Konigsberg, 282
Kriegsmatten, 98
Kronstadt, 49
Kulm, 49
Kupferhiitte, 332
Kustendje, 296
Kynance, 175 n.
Laach, 174 Labrador, 26 Laccadives, 399 Lacippo, 85 n.
Lackford, 256, 284 La Crau, 173 Lac St. Clair, 36 Lac Superieur, 36 Ladrones, 27 n., 401 Lago Nuovo, 324 La Hoim Deous Mourous, 94 Lain River, 166 La Marche, 201 Lambay Island, 142 Lamberhurst, 251, 326 Lambeth, 140. 270, 391 Lambourne, 400 Lambston, 140 Lampsacus, 82 Lanark, 175 n.
Lancashire, 69, 175, 222 Lancaster, 165 w., 185 and w.,
255
Lancaster Sound, 32 Lancing, 291 Landbeach* 322 n.
Landemeau, 175 w.
Landes, The, 94, 176 Landivizian, 175 n.
Lane River, 166 Langabeer, 14 1 Langavat, Loch, 136 Langbourne, 269 Langeac, 175 ».
Langenhoe, 131 Langetot, 146 Langford, 141 Langness, 137 Lannion, 175 ».
Index
453
Lanoe, 175 n.
Lanrick, 175 w.
Laon, 171
La Penne, 169
Lappmark, 200
Larkbeer, 141
Latakia, 360
La Tour des Maures, 94
La Tour sans Venin, 349
Laughton en le Morthen, 149 n.
La Vendee, 177
Lavin, 52
Laxa River, 401
Laxey River, 401
Laxvoe, 135, 401
Leach, 286
Leadenhall, 272, 352
Leane River, 166
Lea River, 133, 168
Lebanon, 22, 82, 407
Le Cauf, 148
Leckford, 284
Leckhampstead, 284
Ledjun, 198
Lee Beck, 131
Legberthwaite, 247, 282
Legbourne, 282
Leghorn, 347, 37o
Le Ham, 115
Le Hamelet, 115
Le Houlme, 147
Leicester, 134, 196, 198
Leichfield, 283
Leighton Buzzard, 243, 347
Leinster, 143
Leipsig, 49
Leixlip, 142, 401
Leominster, 315
Leon, 91, 198
Lerwick, 135
Les Cevennes, 168
Les Dalles, 147
Le Torp, 146
Levant, 67 n., 70, 71, 363
Leven, Loch, 166
Leven River, 166
L^wes, 319
Leweston, 140
Lewis, 136
Lexdon, 171
Leyden, 171, 174
Liberia, 55
Libya, 72, 366
Lichfield, 242, 284
Lichmere, 291
Lidcoping, 335 w.
Lid River, 168 Liege, 69, 342 Liguria, 183
Lillebonne, 296 Lilletot, 146 Limerick, 142
Lincoln, 132 n., 134, 166, 185 and n., 198, 338 Lindebeuf, 146 Lindfield, 326 n.
Line River, 166 Lingholm, 137 Linlithgow, 1O6 Linton, 166, 249 Lion’s Range, 27 n.
Lisbon, 81, 84, 91, 288, 361 Lisle, 322, 369 Lismore, 417 Listowel, 417 Litla Helluland, 26 Littlebury, 232, 396 Littleness, 137 Littleton, 236, 396 Littlewick^ 139 Lizard Point, 173 Liza River, 137 n.
Llanberis, 31 1 Llanddewi Brefi, 312 Llandudno, 31 1 Llanfrynach, 314 Llangeller, 31 1 Llangollen, 31 1 Llangybi, 312 Llanilltyd, 312 w.
Llanos, The, 176 Llyn yr Afrange, 332 Lobau, 49 Loch Laxford, 401 Lockerbarrow, 138 Lockerby, 138 Lockholme, 138 Lockthwaite, 138 Lodi, 296 Lodomiria, 69 Lodshot, 326 Logberg, 279 Loin River, 166 Lombardy, 50, 67 London, 171, 185, 337 London, Street names of, 265, 352, 353 and n.
Lcmdonderry, 23 Long Acre, 267 Longbue, 146 Lonsdale, 128 n.
Lorraine, 55, 69 Lothbury, 272 Loudon, 154, 161, 296, 343 Loudun, 170
Louisiana, 23, 36, 44, 393 Louvre, 277 Lowestoft, 132
Words and Places
454
Ludgate, 266, 267 Ludlow, 410 Ludwigsburg, 296 Ludwigshafen, 296 Lund, 306 Lundey, 306 n.
Lundgarth, 306 Lundholme, 306 n.
Lundy, 139 Lune River, 165 and w., 166 and ». Lunziesting, 280 Lusby, 133 Lusitania, 57 Luttich, 342 Luxembourg, 69, 103 n,
Luxor, 342 n.
Luz, 20 n.
Lycia, 78, 179 Lycus, 350, 406 Lymbach, 343 Lyme Regis, 218, 283 Lymne, 190, 319 Lyndhart, 326 w.
Lyndhurst, 326 n.
Lynn, 132 n., 218 Lynx Tor, 173 n.
Lyon, Loch, 166 Lyon River, 167 Lyons, 171, 174
Macao, 39, 362 n,
Maccheda, 88 Macclesfield, 242, 396 Machenthal, 342 n.
Macopsisa, 82 Macquarie, 42 Mactorium, 83 m.
Macugnaga Valley, 53 Madeira, 325, 361 Madulein, 98
Maes Garmon, 177 293
Maestrecht, 343 Magalhaens Straits, 38 Magdeburg, 177, 346 Mageroe, 130 Maghera, 177 Magnesia, 179, 365 Mago, 85 w.
Magueda, 84 Mahrattas, 74 Maidenhead, 340, 346 Maidstone, 256, 346 Maine, 36, 176 Maintz, 178, 343 Maira, 98 Majorca, 396 Malaca, 82
Malaga, 76 w., 81, 84, 91, 361 Malakofi, 276 n.
Maldives, 399 Maldon, 165, 171 Mailing, 107 Malpas, 149, 404 Malta, 83, 89 Maltby, 132 Mam Tor, 173 n.
Man, Isle of, 135, 176 and n., 186, 331, 332 n.
Mancester, 176, 197
Mancha, La, 176
Manchester, 176, 185, 196 w., 367
Manilla, 360
Mans, 176
Mansfield, 176, 242, 255, 256 Mantes, 176 Mantua, 176 Manxes, 176 Manzanares, 361 Marazion, 86 and «.
Marbach, 200 Marbecq River, no, 200 Marboeuf, 146 Marbrook, 199 Marbury, 199 March, 200, 201 Marchburg, 200 Marche, 201 Marchiennes, 201 n.
Marchomley, 199 Marck, 109, 201 Mardick, 200 Marengo, 120 Margarita, 401 Margate, 19 1 Marham, 200 Mark, 200
Market Bosworth, 335 Markland, 26 Mark Lane, 352 Markley, 199
Marlborough, 103 195, 232, 233,
348
Marlow, 410 Marquesas, 38, 42 Marrington, 116, 120 Marsaba, 314 w.
Marsa Forno, 89 Marsala, 87, 89, 361 Marsa Muscetto, 89 Marsa Scala, 89 Marsa Scirocco, 89 Marsberg, 342 n.
Marston, 199 235, 260
Maryborough, 23 Mary gate, 19 1 Maryland, 36, 37 Marylebone, 269 Marzahn, 307 n.
Index
455
Maserfield, 177 n.
Massachusetts, 26, 28, 30, 393, 406 Mathern, 178 n.
Matmark, 96 Matterhorn, 408 Maupertuis, 285 Mauretania, 57 Maurienne, 95, 97, 379 Mauritius, 40 Mausethurm, 389 Maxstoke, 396 Mayenne, 154, 176 Mayfair, 268 Ma)uiooth, 177 Mayn River, 48 n., 49 May River, 168 Mazara, 83 Meander fover, 388 Meare, 320 Mechlin, 369 Mecklenburg, 49, 69 Mediccara, 83 n.
Medina, 92 Medinaceli, 92 n.
Medina Sidonia, 84, 92 n. Medinet-ennabi, 92 n.
Medma, 82 Medoc, 356, 361 Medugarra, 83 n.
Medway River, 160 Megganaes, 136 n.
Megginch, 321 Meiches, 342 n.
Melas, 406 Melbourne, 42 Mell Fell, 304 n.
Melrose, 172 Melun, 171 Melville, 42, 150, 247 Menai Straits, 176 • Meppenthal, 342 n.
: Mercia, 184, 201, 222 Mercy, Bay of, 42 Merida, 295 Merkbury, 200 Merring, 106 Merrington, 106 Merthyr-Tydvil, 212, 31 1 Mesham, 177 n.
Messina, 23, 404
Meteora, 405
Meuse River, 168, 177 n.
Mexico, 30, 43 Mezzojuso, 88 Michigan, 30, 44 Micklegarth, 128 n.
Micklegate, 19 1 Middleney, 320 Middlesex, 202, 222
Middlewich, 130
Middlezoy, 320
Midhurst, 251, 326
Milan, 176 and w., 201, 370 n.
Miletus, 23
Milford, 129, 139
Millgate Street, 191
Miningsby, 133
Minnesota, 30
Minorca, 396
Minories, 271 and n.
Minshall- Vernon, 150 Mischabel Horner, 96, 97 Misilmeri, 88
Mississippi, 30, 36, 70, 339 39^
Missouri, 30, 393, 400 Mis Tor, 173 n., 302 Mistretta, 88 Mitau, 307 n.
Mittelmark, 200 Mizraim, 399 Moat Hill, 227, 278 Mobile, 36 Mocha, 358 Moffat, 150 Mohawk, 30 Mold, 149 Mona, 176 and n.
Monastir, 315 Monch, 408
Mongibello, 87, 97, 164 Monklands, 263, 315 Monkton, 263, 315 Mons Palatinus, 389 Monstiers, 315 Montacute Hill, 149 Mont Blanc, 22, 97 n., 407 Mont Cenis, 170 n.
Monte Merino, 88 Monte Moro, 96 Monte Nuovo, 324 Monterchi, 308 n.
Monte Rossi, 172, 406 Montford, 149 Montgomeri, 67 n,
Montgomery, 149 and w., 185 n., 212
Montjoie, 285
Mont Maure, 95
Mont Mort, 95, 97
Montreal, 36
Montreuil sur Mer, 109, 322 Montrose, 172 Moorby, 133 Moorfields, 265 Moorlinch, 320 Moot Hill, 278 Moravia, 65, 200, 201 Moray, 78 Morbecque, 200
Words and Places
456
Morcambe Bay, 167 Morea, 203 Morengo, 120 Morghen, 96 Morhiban, 78 Moro, The, 96, 97 Mosbach, 342 ».
Mote Hill, 278 Mote of the Mark, 278 Motuca, 83 «.
Moulsey, 317 Moumour, 54 Mount Benjerlaw, 164 Mousselwick, 139 Moussul, 367 Moustiers, 315 Moutay, 278 Moutier, 315 Muchelney, 320 Much Wenlock, 396 Muggleswick Bay, 139 Muhlenbach, 49 Mull of Cantyre, 304 w. Miillrose, 346 Miinchen, 315 Mundham, 292 n.
Munich, 315 Munster, 143 Miurcia, 91, 199 Murgis, 85 n.
Muretto, 97 Muro Castel, 98 Mussomeli, 88
Naab Valley, 48 Naalsoe, 136 n.
Nabel, 342
Nablus, or^Nabulus, 342, 398
Nadur, 89
Nagpoor, 164
Nan Bield, 176
Nancemellin, 176
Nancy, 176
Nancy Cousins Bay, 347
Nangy^ 176
Nanhai, 397
Nanking, 397
Nanling, 397
Nans, 176
Nantes, 176
Nant Bourant, 176
Nant Dant, 176
Nant d’Apenaz, 176
Nant de Gria, 176
Nant de Taconay, 176
Nant Frangon, 176, 332, 400
Nantglyn, 176
Nantua, 176
Nantwich, 176, 333
Naples, 342 Nash Point, 139 Natal, 27 Natchez, 30 Natolia, 70 Naturns, 52 n,
Nauplia, 342 Navesby, 292 n.
Navistock, 292 n.
Naxia, 337 n.
Naze, The, 130, 131, 139 Nazirah, 337 n.
Neath River, 168 Nebrissa, 85 n.
Neckar River, 304 n.
Needles, The, 405 Negropont, 351, 352 Ness, The, 141 Nesting, 280 Netherby, 127, 397 Netherwich, 130 Netley, 400 Neufch^tel, 51, 398 Neumark, 200 Neustadt, 398 Nevers, 171 Neville, 398 Nevilleholt, 150 New Amsterdam, 37, 38 New Brunswick, 44 Newby, 398 New Caledonia, 41 Newcastle, 398 Newchurch, 319 New Forest, 328 Newfoundland, 26, 398 Newgate, 19 1 New Ground, 320 New Hampshire, 29, 44 Newhaven^ 28, 319 New Hebrides, 41 New Holland, 40 New Inverness, 37 New Jersey, 30, 36, 37 Newland, 398 New Netherlands, 37 New Orleans, 36, 44 Newport- Pagnell, 150 Newsom, 114 n.
New Sweden, 37 New York, 37, 44, 45, 69, 393 Niagara, 30, 44, 393 Nightingale Lane, 352 Nihou, 147 Nilgherries, 406 Nimwegen, 345 Nine Elms, 398, 402 Nipissing, Lake, 30 Nismes, 305
Index
457
Nobar, 20 n.
Nora, 82 Norbury, 396
Norfolk, 132, 202 and w., 222, 396 Norfolk Island, 41 Norleigh, 396 Normandby, 202 Normandikes, 286 Normandy, 48, 67, 149 Norman’s Cross, 141, 224 Normanton, 150 North Anna River, 37 Northfleet, 149, 257, 266 n. Northumberland, 133 n., 175, 185 w., 202, 222, 396 Northwich, 130 Norwich, 132, 246 Norwich Bay, 136 Notre Dame des Fortes, 323 Notting Hill, 268 Nova Scotia, 26, 36, 186 w.
Nova Zembla, 398 Novgorod, 398 Noyon, 171 Nuneaton, 263, 315 Nunthorp, 263, 315 Nutford, 250, 400 Nycoping, 335 n.
Nymet Rowland, 305 Nyon, 171
Oakley, 243, 249 Oare, 414 Ochil Hills, 188 Ochiltree, 188 Ockley, 249 Ock River, 158 Odalengo, 120 Oelbach, 346 n.
Offa’s Dyke, 194 Offenham, 230, 292 Offley, 292 Ohio, 30 Ohre River, 167 Oise River, 159 Oister Hills, 293 Okeley, 402 Oke River, 158 Olbia, 82 w.
Oldbury, 195, 397 Old Ditch, 194 Old Ford, 192 Old Man, 345 Olney, 402 Oloron, 94 Oporto, 91, 361 Orange, Fort, 37 Orange River, 40, 344 Orellana River, 39
Orford, 129, 132, 256 Orfordness, 131 Organ Mountains, 405 Orippo, 85 n.
Oristan, 89 Orkney, 70, 135, 158 Orleans, 296 Ormathwaite, 138, 247 Ormes Head, 139 Ormsby, 105,’ 132, 215 Ormunde, 396 Oseney, 158 Ose River, 159 Osey Island, 158, 164 Ossaboer, 141 w.
Ossaia, 283 Osteglia, 324 Ostend, 397 Ostia, 323 Ost-tonne, 100 «.
Oswestry, 175 w., 211, 212, 247, 292
Otford, 192, 261, 292, 342 w., 397
Othery, 320
Othoca, 82
Ottawa, 30
Otterbourne, 400
Oudales, 147
Ouistreham, 115
Ourcq River, 167
Ouseburn, 163
Ousel River, 158
Ouse River, 158
Overs, 227
Owlar Tor, 173 n.
Owstwick, 114 n.
Oxford, 149, 185 w., 192 w., 400 Oxley, 400 Oxmantown, 143 Oxney, 322 Oxwich, 139
Pabba, 309 310
Pachynus, 81, 83 Pacific Ocean, 403 Padstow, 312 «.
Paestum, 308 Painboeuf, 146 Palatinus, Mons, 389 Palermo, 88, 403 Palestine, 60, 68, 83 n., 97 Pall Mall, 276 Palmyra, 337 w., 344 n.
Pampeluna, 296 Panama, 401 Pann Castle, 169 Papa, 309 310 and n.
Papas, 310 Paplay, 310 Paraguay, 413
Words and Places
458
Parahiba, 413 Parana, 413
Paris, 31, 68, 119, 174 and w., 277 and n., 288 Paro, 337 n.
Passingford, 192 Patagonia, 401 Patimo, 337 n.
Paunton, 192 n.
Peak, The, 51, 66 Peel, 42
Pelonis, Cape, 333, 404 Pembroke, 169 Pen, 169 Penard, 169 Pencoid, 169 Pencraig, 169 Pendennis, 169 Pendhill, 164 Pendlehill, 164 Pendleton, 169 Pendrich, 169 Penherf, 169*
Penhill, 164, 169 Penilucus, 169 Penketh, 169 Penlaw, 164
Penmaenmawr, 169, 396 Penmarch, 169 Penn, 169
Pennagaul Hills, 169 Pennant, 176 Penne, 169 Pennigant, 169 Pennine Alps, 95, 169 Pennsylvania, 30, 37 Penpont, 169 Penrhos, 169, 172 Penrhyn, 160 w., 169 Penrith, 169 Pensby, 138 Penshurst, 169, 326 n,
Pentland Hills, 169 Pentlow Hill, 164 Penwally, 169 Penyholt Stack, 139 Penzance, 312 w.
Perga, 103 n.
Pergamos, 103 n,
Pernambuco, 39, 404 Perranzabuloe, 312 w.
Peru, 23, 39 Perugia, 337 n,
Perwick, 137 Peschkow, 400
Peterborough, 103 206, 232
Petersfield, 326 Petersgate, 191 Petra, 76
Petuaria, 114 Pevensey, 320 Pfyn, 201 Pharos, 333 Phenice, 82 Phiala, 405 Philadelphia, 29, 295 Philippine Islands, 23, 38 Philipstown, 23 Phineke, 81 Phoeicodes, 81 Phoenice, 81 Phoenicia, 81 Phoenicus, 81 Phoeniki, 81 Piacenza, 342, 404 Piccadilly, 269, 275 Piets’ Work, 194 Piedmont, 70 Pihking, 397 Pihhng, 397 Pike o’ Stickle, 138 Pilatus, 350, 408 Pile of Foudry, 334 Pimlico, 276 Pindus, Mount, 169 Pinhow, 164 Pisa, 337 n.
Pisgah, 409
Pisogne, 120
Pitchley, 203
Pittsburgh, 36, 393
Piz del Moro, 96, 97
Piz Morter, 97
Piz Mortiratsch, 97
Piz Muretto, 97
Plants, Names from, 402, 403
Pleshy, 149
Plumetot, 1 15, 146
Plymouth, 30, 256, 393
Plynlimmon, 399
Poitou, 67
Poland, 351, 364
Polbrook, 301
Polenza, 404
Polgarth, 86
Polsden, 301
Polsdon, 301
Polstead, 301
Pomerania, 49, 78 and w., 397 Po Morto, 324 Pontefract, 189 n., 192 Ponteland, 192 n.
Pont Neath Vechan, 396 Pontresina, 97, 98 and n. Pontus, 78 and n. Poppenwind, 48 n,
Populonia, 337 w.
Porchester, 189 n., 196
Index
459
Port dyn Norwig, 139 Portfieet, 266 n.
Port na Spanien, 284 Port Philip, 42 Portsmouth, 288, 289, 393 Portugal, 57, 63, 94, 12 1 Port Valais, 323 Posgost, 53 Potomac, 30, 44 Potsdam, 49 and w., 346 Pourrieres, 283 Po Vecchio, 324 Preston, 219, 236, 315, 327 Prestwich, 219, 315 Prettlewell, 131 Priestholme, 139 Priors Hardwick, 315 Providence, 29, 44 Providence, Fort, 29 Prussia, 49, 288, 397 Puente de Alcantara, 164 Pulopenang, 403 Punjab, 153 w., 399 Purfleet, 147, 250, 257, 266 n. Putney, 270, 317 Puy Maure, 95 Pwllhelli, 333
Pyrenees, 46, 50, 51, 94, 168 ;i., 409
Quantovic, 148 Quat, 203 Quatford, 203 Quebec, 36 Queenborough, 283 Queenhithe, 270 Queen’s County, 23 Quiberon, 175 n.
Quillebeuf, 146 Quimper, 67 n.
Quittebeuf, 146
Raby, 138 Radeburg, 307 Radegast, 307 Radegosz, 307 Radensdorf, 307 Radibor, 307 Radihoscht, 307 Rainsbarrow, 138 Raithby, 133 Raleigh, 31, 393 Raleigh Island, 31 Rampsholme, 137 Ramsey, 139, 164, 21 1, 260 Ramsgate, 19 1 Ransdale, 138 Rapidan River, 37 Rappahanock, 30, 44 Rasacarami, 81 Ras el Jafal, 89 Q 517
Rasenna, 52 w.
Rasicalbo, 88 Rasicanzir, 88 Rasicorno, 88 Ratcliffe, 405 Rathay River, 137 n. Rathboyne, 417 Rathlin, 417 Ratzenwinden, 48 n.
Ray River, 160 Reading, 185 n., 217 Rea River, 160 Recken Dyke, 194 Reculvers, 113 Redriff, 270 Redruth, 305 Red Sea, 344, 405 Regalmuto, 88 Rega River, 160 Regen River, 160 Reichenhall, 315 Reigate, 19 1 Reikjavik, 399 Reinhardswind, 48 n. Rellinghaus, 124 n.
Rendlesham, 292 Repps, 132 Repulse Bay, 42 Resultana, 88 Retford, 251 Return Reef, 42 Revesby, 133 Reykholt, 325 Rey River, 160 Rha River, 160, 359 Rhea River, 160 Rhee River, 160 Rhegium, 405 Rheims, 119 Rhind, 160 w.
Rhine River, 49, 160, 162 Rhin River, 160 Rhoda, Gulf of, 46 Rhode Island, 29 Rhoetia, 52 w.
Rhone River, 155, 160, 161, 162
Richardtun, 150
Richmond, 149
Richest on, 140
Rievaux, 149
Ringwood, 68
Rio Colorado, 405
Rio de la Plata, 55 n., 400
Rio Grande, 396
Rio Negro, 406
Ripley, 243, 293 n.
Robbers’ Islands, 27 n. Robeston, 140 I Rockbeer, 141, 234
Words and Places
460
Rockbere, 141 Rockingham, 120 n., 237 Rodenditmol, 278 Rodges, 307 Rodney, 320 Roe River, 160 Rogeston, 140 Rolandseck, 349 Rollesby, 132, 215 Romagna, 69 Romania, 69
Rome, 43, 55 63, 69, 95,
277
Romford, 192
Romney, New, 319
Romney, Old, 319
Romney Marsh, 142 n., 165, 318
and n.
Ronaldsa, 136 Ronaldsay, 137 Ronsegno, 120 Roodey, 320 Roosefelt, 37 n.
Rosa, Monte, 172 Rosatsch, 172 Roscommon, 172 Rosduy, 172 Roseboom, 37 n.
Roseg, 172 Rosendale, 37 n.
Rosenlaui, 172 Roslin, 166, 172 Rosneath, 172 Ross, 42, 172 Rossberg, 172 Rostrenan, 172 Rotha River, 137 n.
Rouen, 119, 17S n., 364 Roum, 69 Roumelia, 69 Rousillon, 361 Routot, 146 Row Tor, 173 n.
Roxburgh, 172, 233 Roy River, i6o Rozas, 46 Rubicon, 388 Rue River, 160 Rugby, 126, 405 Rugen Island, 67 Runnimede, 277 Rusholme, 251 Rusucurum, 83 «.
Rutchester, 195, 197 Rutland, 134, 222, 405 Rye River, 160 Ryknield Street, 190 Rynd, 160
Rysom Garth, 114 u.
Saala River, 333 Saas, 97 and n.
Saborra, 85 n.
Sachsenhausen, 124 204
Sala River, 333 Saldanha Bay, 39 Salduba, 85 n.
Salem, 28, 29, 44 Sale River, 333 Salisbury, 195, 206, 232, 338 Salmonby, 133 Salop, 69, 185, 338 Salzburg, 315 Samaden, 98 Samarcand, 295 Samo, 337 n.
Samos, 82, 409 Samothrace, 82 Sanda, 135, 321 Sandbach, 128 w., 257, 400 Sandgate, no, 191, 400 Sandhurst, 400 Sandoe, 136 w.
Sandrup, 127 n.
Sandsthing, 280
Sandwich, 130, 135, 142, 245^ 318, 400
Sandwich Islands, 41, 42 Sandwich Land, 41 Sandwick, 135 Sandwick Bay, 137, 165 Sanguinetto, 283 Sanifera, 85 n.
Sannat, 89 San Salvador, 26, 27 San Sebastian, 27 Santa Cruz, 27 Santander, 314 n.
Santarem, 314 n.
Santiago de Compostella, 314 315
Santorin, 404
Sarne, 406
Sarnow, 406
Sam yr Af range, 332
Sart, 337 n.
Sarum, 338 Sassenberg, 204 Sassetot, 115, 204 Satterleigh, 299 Satterthwaite, 247, 299 Saturnia, 337 n.
Sauterne, 361 Savoy, The, 173, 275, 276 Sawting, 280 Saxaford, 135 Saxby, 202
Saxony, 49, 67, 124 n.
Scale How, 138 Scalenghe, 120
Index
461
Scaletta, 98 and n.
Scalloway, 281 n.
Scanderoom, Bay of, 295 Scaranos, 148 Scarborough, 103 233
Scar House, 131 Scarness, 137, 148 Schaffhausen, 416 Schautewitz, 307 n.
Schluderns, 52 n.
Schneekoppe, 408 Schollnach, 331 Schreckhorn, 408 Schwerin, 400 Schwytz, 204 Scinde, 73 w., 89, 400 Scio, 403
Scotland, 73 and n., 76, loi, 134, 135, 136 Scotney, 319 Scotthorpe, 202 Scratch Meal Scar, 304 Scratta Wood, 304 Scrivelsby, 133 Scrotesby, 132 Scythopolis, 203 Seacoal Lane, 69 Seaford, 129, 142, 319 Seal Chart, 326 n.
Seckington, 218, 340 Sedan, 372 Sedgeley, 250, 251 Segodunum, 170 n.
Seidlitz, 366 Selby, 127 Seleucm, 295 and n.
Selinus, 82 Selling, 107 Selsey, 320, 400 Senlac, 285
Sermon Lane, 272, 352 Servianika, 203 Seton, 150
Sevenoaks, 248, 340, 398 Sevilla, 84, 91 and n.
Sewardstone, 292 Sharpenhoeknoll, 164 Shaws, The, 347 Sheerness, 131, 148 Shellness, 131 Shepody Moimtain, 347 Sherringham, 106 Shilton, 292 n.
Shilvington, 106 Shinburness, 137 Shipton, 236, 400 Shirleywich, 130 Shoeburyness, 131 Shoreditch, 269
Shotover Hill, 346 Shottington, loi Shotwick, 138 Shrewsbury, 233, 338 Sicily, 50, 87, 96, 97 Sidon, 20 23, 81, 336, 399 ,
Siebenbiirgen, 49, 50 Siegesberg, 285 Sienna, 337 n.
Sierra Leone, 27 n.
Sierra Morena, 406 Sierra Nevada, 22, 406, 407 Sierra Vermeja, 406 Sigtuna, 100 n.
Silberhorne, 408 Silbury, 306 Silly Wreay, 346 Silver Hill, 140 Silverholm, 137 Silver How, 138 Simcoe, Lake, 42 Sinai, Mount, 359 Sinde, 400 Sion, 170, 409 Sise Lane, 353 Sistrans, 52 Sitten, 170 Siue-ling, 407 Skagi, Cape, 325 Skalholt, 325 Skeggles Water, 138 Skelding, 106 Skelmergate, 19 1 Skerki Rocks, 148 Skeroar, 135 Skerpoint, 139
Skerries, The, 139, 14 1, 142, 148
Skerrow, Loch, 135
Skerryback, 139
Skerry ford, 139
Skerry vore, 130
Skillington, 120 n.
Skogarfoss, 128 n., 325 Skogcottr, 325 Skokholm Island, 139 Skomer, 139 Skrattaskar, 304 Skyro, 337 n.
Slaughter, 286 Slaughterford, 2 85 Smerwick, 142, 165 Smithfield, Virginia, 34 Smith’s Isles, 34 Smith’s Sound, 42 Snafell, Iceland, 22 Snafell, Isle of Man, 22, 408 Sneefell, 137, 408 Sneehatten, 22, 408 Sneekoppe, 22
Words and Places
462
Sneeuw Bergen, 22, 408 Snowdon, 22, 407 Snow Hill, 352 Snows, The, 347 Soar River, 168 Society Islands, 41 Soderick, 137 Sodor, 136 Sollentuna, 100 n.
Solothurn, 156 n.
Solway, 31, 68, 160
Somerset, 66, 175 and n., 184, 185,
222, 331, 369 Somers Islands, 39 Sommersby, 133, 220 Soracte, 347 Southfleet, 257, 266 n.
Spa, 366 *
Spain, 39, 40, 45, 46, 50, 56, 81, 84,
87, 96, 175
Spaniola, 98 Sparti, 77, 337 n.
Speen, 189 n.
Spitalfields, 268, 270, 271 Spit head, 410 Spuyten Diiyvel, 37 n.
St. Agnes, 141, 262, 347
St. Alban’s Head, 348
St. Angelo, 314
St. Augustine, 28
St. Bees, 262, 313
St. Bride’s Stack, 139
St. Brieux, 313
St. Charles, 36
St. Clair, Lac, 36
St. Cloud, 313
St. Dennis, 315
St. Domingo, 338
St. Edmund’s Bury, 315
St. Edmund’s Dyke, 194
St. Gallen, 313
St. Goar, 347
St. Helena, 28
St, Heliers, 314
St. Ives, 262, 313
St. Kenelm’s Well, 312 n.
St. Lawrence River, 28, 36
St. Louis, 36
St. Malo, 313
St. Mary Overy, 270
St. Mary Somerset, 270
St. Mary’s Gate, 19 1
St. Michael’s Mount, 85, 262
St. Neot’s, 262, 313
St. Omer, 109, 313
St. Oreste, 347
St. Osyth, 314 M., 315
St. Petersburgh, 296
St. Pierre-sur-le-Digue, 323
St. Ubes, 347 St. Victoire, 283 Staatsburg, 37 w.
Stack, 139 Stack, North, 139 Stack, South, 139 Stack Islands, 139 Stackpole Head, 139 Stack Rocks, 139 Statfa, 130 Stafford, 185 n.
Staines, 415 Stake, 138 Stamboul, 342 Stamford Bridge, 23 and n. Standard Hill, 285 Stanford, 192, 212, 261 Stanko, 162 w., 342 Stansgate Wick, 13 1 n. Stapleford, 192, 221, 261 Stapleford Abbots, 315 Stappen, 400 Stargard, 417 Start Island, 321 Starwitz, 398 Staten Island, 37 Steepavat, Loch, 136 Steepholm, 139 Stepney, 270, 340, 353 Steyermark, 200 Sticklinch, 320 Sticks, The, 138 Stockbridge, 192, 254 Stockholm, 139 Stoke-Mandeville, 149 Stoke-Pirou, 150 Stokesby, 132 Stolac, 53 Stolvizza, 53 Stonegate, 19 1 Stone Street, 190 Stony Stratford, 190, 261 Store River, 157 Storms, Cape of, 40 Stor River, 157 Stortford, 192, 256, 261 Stourmouth, 318 Stour River, 157, 162, 256 Stowmarket, 335 Straight gate, 141 Strand, The, 268 Strangford, 129, 142 Stratford, 190, 261, 396 Stratford-le-Bow, 192 Stratford-on-Avon, 192 Strathclyde, 21, 62, 171, 222 Strath- Helmsdale, 135 Stratton, 190, 236, 261 Streatham, 190, 261
Index
46
Streatley, 190, 261 Streets of London, 265 Stretford, 190 Stretton, 190, 236, 261, 396 Stronsa, 135 Strumble Head, 139 Studda, 140 Stura River, 157 Sturminster, 256, 262, 315 Stuvyvesant, 37 Suabia, 67
Sudbury, 232, 233, 396 Sudley, 396 Sudreyjar, 136 Suel, 85 n.
Sueveghem, 123 w., 204 Suffolk, 13 1, 132, 185, 186, 202 and 222, 396 Sulby, 137 Sulchi, 82 n.
Sully, 139 Superior, Lake, 36 Sur, 337 n.
Surrey, 185, 186, 202, 396 Susquehanna, 30 Sussex, 21, 202, 222, 396 Sutherland, 70, 135, 185 «.
Swabia, 122, 333 Swale River, 168 Swanage, 141, 340 Swanescomb, 142 n.
Swan River, 401 Swanthorpe, 142 Swanton, 142 n.
Swanwick, 14 1 Swashings, The, 347 Sw'eden, 100 n., 123 n.
Swedesboro’, 37, 46 Swindon, 400 Swingfield, 400 Switzerland, 51, 69, 97 Sybaris, 82 Sydney, 42, 340 n.
Syria, 79 n., 81 w., 87
Taba, 83 n.
Table Mountain, 405 Tacarata, 83 n.
Tachbury, 329 Tadmor, 20 w., 337 and n.
Taff River, 154, 162 n.
Tagara, 83 n.
Tagarata, 83 n.
Tagus River, 84 Tain, 280 Ta Loch, 166 Tamar River, 166 Tame River, 166 Tamworth, 102, 242, 255
Tancarville, 127 Tankerton, 150 Tarasp, 98 Tarifa, 90, 385 Tarik, Mountain of, 90 Tarragona, 85, 359 Tarsus, 82 Tasmania, 70 Taurus, Moxmt, 173 Tave River, 167 Tavon River, 162 n.
Tavy River, 154, 166, 256 Taw River, 154, 166, 256 Tay River, 166 Teane River, 162 Tees River, 158, 162 n., 168 Tei^ River, 162, 256 Telliboden, 96 Tema River, 166 Teme River, 166, 256 Tempe, 405 Temple Chelsing, 316 Temple Dinsley, 316 Temple Roydon, 316 Tempsa, 82 Tenby, 140 Tenedos, 81, 337 Tenterden, 244, 326 Terceira, 399 Terhoulde, 148 Temengo, 120 Terregles, 316 Tete Blanche, 22 Teufelsmaner, 303 w.
Teufelstein, 303 n.
Tew, Great, 299 Tew Dunse, 299 Tewesley, 299 Tewin, 299 Teyn River, 162
Thames River, 158, 166, 255, 362 Thanet, 113, 218 Thapsus, 83 n.
Thaso, 337 n.
Thaxstead, 158, 342 n,
Thera, 404 Thermopylae, 399 Thimbleby, 282 Thinganes, 280 Thingdon, 281 Thingmuli, 280 Thingore, 280 Thingskaler, 280 Thingvellir, 279 and n.
Thingwall, 139, 280 Thistleworth, 342 n.
Thoby, 13 1 Thomaston, 140 Thong Castle, 348
Words and Places
464
Thong Castor, 348 Thorigny, 116, 301 Thorington, 106 Thorney, 320
Thorney Island, 270 n., 317 Tbornston, 140 Thornton, 139, 236, 249 Thorp, 141
Thorpe, 132, 142, 228, 246 Thorpe le Soken, 131, 228, 280 Thorrington, 106 Thorshavn, 13^ «.
Thrace, 76 Thun, 170.
Thunderhili, 300 Thundersfield, 300 Thundersleigh, 300 Thundorf, 170 Thundridge, 300 Thurleigh, 301 Thurlow, 301 Thur River, 155 Thuming, 120 n.
Thurr River, 156 Thursby, 300 Thurscross, 301 Thursfield, 301 Thursford, 301 Thurshelton, 141, 281 and n. Thursley, 301 Thurso, 135, 301 Thurstable, 224, 301 Thurstan, 140 Thurstanton^ 139 Thurston, 301 Thwing, 281 Tian River, 162 Tiberias, 296 Ticino Canton, 52 Tierra del Fuego, 38, 399 Tilisuna, 52 n.
Tingewick, 281 Tingshogeii, 279 Tingwall, 280, 281 n.
Tinsley, 281 Tinwald Hill, 280 Tinwell, 281 Tlascala, 30 Tobago, 360 Todburn, 400 Todfield, 400 Todincthun, 100 w., in Toft, 133, 134 n,
Tokay, 361
Toledo, 85, 91
Toller Fratrum, 315
Tom Kedgwick Mountain, 347
Tonengo, 120
Tone River, 162 and n., 256
Tong, 203
Tooley Street, 271, 340, 353
Tooter Hill, 302
Toot Hill, 302
Tor, 302
Torbay, 173
Torcegno, 120
Torkington, 120 n,
Torness, 301 Torre River, 156 Torres Strait, 38 Torres Vedras, 398 Tortuga, 401 Tot Hill, 302 Tournay, 343 Tournebue, 146 Tours, 288 Tourville, 145 Towy River, 154 Trachonitis, 76 and n. Traeth Mawr, 320 Trafalgar, 93 Tralee, 414 Transylvania, 49 Treba, 156, 175 Trebbia, 175 Trebizond, 405 Treborough, 175 n.
Treglia, 175 Trenance, 176 Trent River, 156 Trepani, 87 Tresso, 175 Tretire, 175 7t.
Trevento, 175 n.
Treves, 68, 69, 119, 175 Trevi, 175 Treviso, 175 Trewen, 175 n.
Tricastin, 175 Trient, 175 Trieste, 159, 175 Tring, 104 Trinidad, 27, 344 n.
Trins, 52 Tripe Court, 352 Tripoli, 23, 342, 365, 399 Trivento, 177 Trondhjem, 282 Trotternisli, 136 Trotterscliffe, 340 Trougham, 329 Troyes, 175, 288 Truxillo, 296 Tschars, 52 n.
Tucking Mill, 140 Tuileries, 277, 389 n, Tulloch Street, 340 Tunbridge, 192, 256, 261
Index
Turas, 182 Turdetani, 182 Turhulme, 147 Turia River, 156 Turiaso, 182 Turiga, 182
Turin, 31, 68 and 178 n. Turkey, 68 Turnagain Point, 42 Tursdale, 301 Tuscany, 52 n.
Tusis, 52 n.
Tyburn, 269
Tydd, 322
Ty Ddewi, 312
Tyne River, 162
Tynet River, 162
Tynwald Hill, 282
Tyre, 23, 79 n., 80, 8r, 84, 399
T^ol, 76 w., 173
Tyrrell’s Ford, 289
Ucheltree, 188 Ucia, 85 Uckfield, 326 n.
Ufford, 292 Uggmere, 158 Uig, 136
Ukermark, 200 and n.
Ukraine, 200 n.
Ullsthorpe, 395 Ulrome, 114 w.
Ulster, 143, 157 Ulverstone, 138, 252 Umber, 366 United States, 46, 55 Upminster, 315 Ural Mountains, 409 Urbiaca, 182 Urbina, 182 Urci, 85 n.
Uria, 182 Use River, 158 Usk River, 158, 362 Utica, 82, 83, 84 Utrecht, 162 ft., 343 Uxbridge, 158, 192
Vaagoe, 136 n.
Valais, 51, 52 Val de Nant, 164, 176 Valdengo, 120 Val de Penas, 361 Valenciennes, 296, 369 Valentia, 91 and n., 404 Valetta, 294 and n.
Valland, 62 Valparaiso, 403 Vancouver’s Island, 41
465
Van Diemen’s Land, 40 and n. Vannes, 177 and n.
Varengefjord, 148 n.
Varengeville, 148 n.
Varengo, 120 Vattemish, 136 Vaud, 51 Vels, 52 ft.
Veit burns, 52 f?.
Venetia, 72 ft., 177 and w. Venezuela, 401 Vera Cruz, 27 Verbose, 147 Verde, Cape, 405 Verdun, 171 I Vermont, 36, 406 [ Verurium, 182 Vespasian’s Camp, 293 Vesuvius, 324, 399 Via Flandrica, 140 Vico, 148 Victoria, 296 Vigo, 129 H., 148 Villanders, 52 n.
Villeneuve, 323, 398 Vindelicia, 72 n.
Vindobonum, 72 n.
Vineyard, The, 331 Vinland, 26 Virginia, 23, 31 Vittefleur, 147 Vittoriosa, 294, 404 Vogar, 140 Volaterra, 337 n.
Volhynia, 77 Voorbourg, 342
Wadhurst, 326 Wadley, 300 Wafer Inlet, 41 Walbrook, 269 Walcheren, 62 Walderswick, 132
Wales, 21, 51, 62 and n., 100, 172,
173, 175
Waligost, 49 n.
Wallabout Bay, 37 Wallachia, 62," 63, 354 Wallensee, 62 Wallenstadt, 62 Wallentuna, 100 w.
Wallingford, 192 Wallis, 62 Wallsend, 195 Walmgate, 191 Walney, 137 Walpole, 322 Walsoken, 228, 322 Walterston, 140
Words and Places
466
Walton, 131 and 195, 236, 242, 322
■Walton-on-the-Naze, 131 Walworth, 102 Wambrook, 300 Wamden, 300 Wampool, 300
Wanborough, 195, 232, 233, 299 Wandlesbury, 203 Wandsworth, 102, 155, 242, 256 Wansbeckwater, 163, 164 Wansdyke, 194, 241, 263, 300 Wansford, 155, 300 Wansley, 300 Wanstead, 155, 300 W’anstrow, 248, 300 W”anthwaite, 300 Warcoppice, 287 Wardlaw, 198 Wardykes, 287 Ware, 286 War Lane, 285 Warminster, 231, 262, 315 Warmlow, 292 n.
Warnborough, 299 Warrington, 107, 121 n., 218 Warwick, no, 349 Wash, The, 134, 158 Washburn, 158, 163, 257 Waterbeach, 322 n.
Waterford, 129, 142, 346 Watervliet, 37 n.
Wathwick, 139
Watling Street, 133, 190, 194 n., 228, 261
Wayland Smith, 303 Weald, The, 326, 327 n.
Wedesley, 300 Wednesbury, 263, 299 Wednesfield, 263, 300 Wednesham, 300 Wedneshough, 300 Weighbogen, 306 Weighton, 306 Weisshom, 22, 40 8 Weissmies, 22, 408 Weland's Forge, 303 Welland River, 414 Wellingen, 124 n.
Wellington, 42, 104 Well Street, 326 n.
Wembury, 21 1, 299 W^'endel Hill, 203 Wenden, 48 n.
Wendhausen, 48 n.
Wendishhayn, 48 n.
Wendlebury, 203 Wendon, 300 Werrington, 107
Weschnitz River, 48 Weser River, 397 Wessex, 202, 222, 291, 396 Westgate, 19 1 Westholme, 320 West Indies, 353 Westmann Isles, 204 Westminster, 315 Westmoreland, 222, 396 Westonzoyland, 320 Westphalia, 77, 100 397
Westra, 135 Westrup, 127 n.
West-tonne, 100 n.
Westvoe, 135 Wetterhom, 408 Wexford, 129, 142 Weybridge, 192, 256, 261 Wey River, 206 Whitby, 126, 127 n.f 138, 246 Whiteford, 139 Whitefriars, 271 Whitehall, 339 Whitehorse Hill, 303 Whiteness, 131 White Sea, 405 Whitney, 317 Whitsand, 140
Wick, 129 f>., 130, 135, 141, 142, 246
Wickham, 130
Wickham Market, 335
Wickhaven, 139
Wicklow, 130, 142
Wick Rock, 140
Wieck, 415
Wieringerwaard, 148 n.
Wiesenfeld, 331 Wiesenstiege, 331 Wigborough, 234
Wight, Isle of , 66, 67 and n , 160, 344 n.
Wigthorpe, 306 Wilhelmsbad, 296 Wilksby, 133 Williamstown, 140 Wilnpach, 343 Wilstrop, 127 Wiltshire, 66, 184 Wimille, no Winchelsea, 319
Winchester, 177, 185, 196 255
Windheim, 48 n.
Windischgratz, 48 n.
Windishbuch, 48 n.
Windle, no, 203 Windleden, 203 Windlesham, 203, 214 Windsor, 260 Wingleton, loi
Index
4&7
Winnal, 331 Winnenden, 48 n.
Winsted, 329 Winter Harbour, 42 Winterthur, 345 Wisbeach, 132 n., 158, 321 Wisborow Hill, 299 Wisby, 306 Wisconsin, 30 Wiskin, 158 Wisk River, 158 Wissan, 324 Wistman’s Wood, 2 78 Wiza River, 137 w.
Woking, 104, 106, 216 Wolds, The, 114 and n., 327 Wolferlow, 331 Wolga, 396 WoUau, 400 Wolsingham, io6 Wolvesey, 252, 331 Wonersh, 300 Wonston, 300 Woodford, 192, 261 Woodnesborough, 299 Woolsingham, io6 Woolwich, 131 and n., 246 Wooton, 236, 251, 329 Worcester, 66, 68, 165 io7, 331, 340
Worcestershire, 246 Worm’s Head, 139 and n,
Wrabness, 131 Wrath, Cape, 346 Wrenside, 138 Wrey River, 160 Wroxeter, 172, 197 Wyborg, 306 Wych Street, 269 n.
Wycombe, 244 Wydale, 306 Wye River, 159 Wyk, 148 Wyke, 130
Wysg River, 158
Xanthus, 405 Xeres, 361 Xeuchia, 89
Yair River, 165 Yarcombe River, 173 Yare River> 132, 153, 165 Yarro River, 165 Yarrow River, 153, 165 Yaxley, 322 Yellow Sea, 344 w., 405 Yenikale, 88 n.
Yes Tor, 173 n.
Ynys Fach, 320
Ynys Fawr, 320
Ynys Hir, 320
Yonker’s Island, 37
York, 134, 185 and 222, 340
York River, 360
Yorkshire, 69, 134, 175 and n,
Yverdun, 170
Yvetot, 146
Zab River, 153 n.
Zaragossa, 91, 343 Zebbey, 89 Zeboim, 401 Zeitz, 307 n.
Zerbruggen, 397
Zermatt, 162 n., 178 n., 342 397,
408
Zershell, 295 Zlebac, 53 n.
Zsil, 296 Zuglio, 296, 343 Zurich, 51 n.y 52 fi., 69 Zuyder Zee, 38, 397 Zweibrucken, 398 Zwettnitz, 307 n.
Zwitto, 307 n.
Zyet, 88
Tmc
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322
323
346
347
348 411 439
440-442
450
458
459
460
461
Bacon’s Essays. Intro, by Oliphant Smeaton Coleridge’s Biograpbia Literaria. Intro, by Arthur Symons Emerson’s Essays. First and Second Series Fronde’s Short Studies. Vol. I.
Lamb’s Essays of Elia. Introduction by Augustine Birrell Hazlitt’s Shakespeare’s Characters Holmes’ Autocrat of the Breakfast Table „ Professor at the Breakfast Table „ Poet at the Breakfast Table Lady Montagu’s Letters. Intro, by R. Brimley Johnson Walton’s Compleat Angler. Intro, by Andrew Lang Matthew Arnold’s Essays. Intro, by G. K. Chesterton Brown’s Rab and his Friends, etc.
Irving’s Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon Reynolds’ Discourses. Intro, by L. March Phlllipps Coleridge’s Essays and Lectures on Shakespeare, etc.
The Spectator. 4 vols. Intro, by Q. Gregory Smith Tytler’s Essay on the Principles of Translation Ruskin’s Seven Lamps of Architecture. Intro. Selwyn Image „ ^Vlodem Painters. 5 vols. Intro, by Lionel Gust
„ Stones of Venice. 3 vols. Intro, by L. March PhiUipps
„ Unto This Last, The Political Economy of Art „ Elements of Drawing and Perspective „ Pre -Raphael! tism. Lectures on Architecture and
Painting, Academy Notes, 1855-1859, and Notes on the Turner Gallery. Intro, by Laurence Binyon Ruskin’s Sesame and Lilies, The Two Paths, and The King of Gie Golden River. Intro, by Sir Oliver Lodge De Quincey’s Opium Eater. Intro, by Sir G. Douglas Mazzini’s Duties of Man, etc. Intro, by Thos. Jones, M.A. Macaulay’s Essays. 2 vols. Intro, by A. J. Grieve, M. A. Elyot’s Gouemour. Intro, and Glossary by Prof. Foster Watson Ulric tiie Farm Servant. Edited with Notes by John Ruskin Carlyle’s Sartor Resartus and Heroes and Hero Worship Emerson’s Representative Men. Intro, by Ernest Rhys Machiavelli’s Prince. Special Trans, and Intro, by W. K. Marriott Thoreau’s Walden. Intro, by Waiter Raymond Ruskin’s Ethics of the Dust. Intro, by Grace Rhys Hazlitt’s Table Talk
Emerson’s Nature, Conduct of Life, Essays from the “ Dial ” Ruskin’s Crown of Wild Olive and Cestus of Aglaia Craik’s Manual of English Literature Swift’s Tale of a Tub. The Battle of the Books, etc.
GilfiUan’s Literary Portraits. Intro, by Sir W. Robertson Nlcoll Hazlitt’s Lectures on the English Comic Writers Macaulay ’s Miscellaneous Essays and The Lays of Ancient Rome Florio’s Montaigne. Intro, by A. R. Waller, M.A. 3 vols. Ruskin’s Time and Tide with other Essays
Matthew Arnold’s Study of Celtic Literature, and other Critical Essays, with Supplement by Lord Strangford, etc.
Hazlitt’s Spirit of the Age and Lectures on English Poets Burke’s Reflections on the French Revolution and contingent Essays. Intro, by A. J. Grieve, M.A.
Utopia and the Dialogue of Comfort against Tribulation. By Sir Thomas More. Intro, by Judge O’Hagan
2
ESSAYS AND BELLES LETTRES—
493 Theology in the English Poets. Stopford A. Brooke, M.A.
604 Herbert Spencer's Essays on Education. Intro, by E. W. Elliot
617 Isaac Taylor’s Words and Places, or Etymological Illustrations
of History, Ethnology, and Geography. Intro. Edward Thomas
618 Rousseau’s Emile. Translated by Barbara Foxley
6 Hamilton's The Federalist ; a Commentary on the Constitution of the United States
620*521 Bagehot's Literary Studies. 2 vols. Intro, by George Sampson
566 The Invisible Playmate, W". V., Her Book, and In Memory of
W. V. By William Canton
567 Emerson's Society and Solitude and other Essays
568 Dryden's Dramatic Essays. With an Intro, by W. H. Hudson
607 Among My Books. By James Russell Lowell
608 Past and Present. By Thomas Carlyle. Intro, by R. W. Emerson
609 The English Mail Coach and Other Writings. By Thos. da
Quincey. Intro, by S. Hill Burton 61 6 The English Humourists and the Pour Georges. By W. M.
Thackeray. Intro, by Walter Jerrold 653 A Century of Essays: An Anthology of English Essayists
673 Essays in the Study of Folk-Songs. By the Countess
Martinengo-Cesaresco
674 The Letters from Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple.
Edited and connotated (with a new historical Introduction) by Judge Parry
675 Anthology of Prose. Compiled and Ed. by Miss S. L. Edwards 703-704 Carlyle’s Essays. 2 vols. With Note by J. Russell Lowell
705 Fronde's Short Studies. Vol. II.
723 Newman’s On the Scope and Nature of University Education,
and a paper on Christianity and Scientific Investigation. Intro, by Wilfrid Ward
724 Penn’s The Peace of Europe, Some Fruits of Solitude, and
other writings
FICTION
AN HISTORICAL LIBRARY— TWELVE VOLUMES
15 Lytton's Hajold. Intro, by Ernest Rhys
16 Scott’s Ivanhoe. Intro, by Ernest Rhys
17 Edgar's Cressy and Poictiers. Intro, by Ernest Rhy® •
18 Lytton's Last of the Barons. Intro, by R. Q. Watkin
19 Manning’s Sir Thomas More. Intro, by Ernest Rhys
20 Kingsley's Westward Ho ! Intro, by A. G. Grieve
71 Scott's Fortunes of Nigel
72 „ Woodstock. Intro, by Edward Garnett
73 Thackeray's Esmond. Intro, by Walter Jerrold
74 Defoe's Captain Singleton. Intro, by Edward Garnett
75 Scott's Waveriey
76 Dickens' Bamaby Rudge. Intro, by W. Jerrold
21 Austen's (Jane) ^nse and Sensibility. Intro, by R. B. Johusou
22 „ Pride and Prejudice. Intro, by R. B. Johnson .
23 „ Mansfield Park. Intro, by R. B. Johnson
24 „ Emma. Intro, by R. B. Johnson
25 „ Northanger Abbey & Persuasion. Intro. R. B. Johnson
26 Balzac's Wild Ass's Skin. Intro, by Prof. Saintsbury
27 Eliot's Adam Bede
28 Kingsley’s (H.) llavenshoe
29 Reade’s (C.) The Cloister and the Hearth. Intro, by A. C.
30 Trollope’s Barchester Towers [Swinburne
77 Cooper’s The Deerslayer 78 Cooper's The Pathfinder
79 ,, The Last of the Mohicans
80 Lytton’s Last Days of Pompeii
81 Dumas' The Three Musketeers
82 Marryat’s Mr. Midshipman Easy. Intro, by R. B. Johnson
83 Gaskell's Cranford
84 Wood’s The Channings
102 Dickens* Tale of Two Cities. Intro, by Walter Jerrold
119 Sorrow's Lavengro. Intro, by Thomas Seccombe
120 „ Romany Rye
121 Eliot's Silas Marner. Intro, by Annie Matheson
3
FlCTlOli— continued
122 Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter
123 Mulock’s John Halifax, Gentleman. 8iH Walter Scott’s Works:—
124 The Abbot 133
126 Anne of Geierstein 134
126 The Antiquary 135
127 Highland Widow and Be- 136
trothed 137
128 Black Dwarf and Legend 138
of Montrose 139
129 Bride of Lammermoor 140
130 Castle Dangerous and The 141
Surgeon’s Daughter 142
131 Count Robert of Paris 143
132 Fair Maid of Perth 144
Intro, by J. Shaylor
Guy Mannering
The Heart of Midlothian
Kenilworth
The Monastery
Old Mortality
PeA'eril of the Peak
The Pirate
Quentin Durward
Redgauntlet
Rob Roy
St. Ronan’s W^ell
The Talisman
169 Balzac’s Eugenie Grandet. Intro, by Prof. Saintsbury
170 „ Old Goriot. Intro, by Prof. Saintsbury
171 Fenhnore Cooper’s Pioneers 172 Fenimore Cooper’s Prairie
173 Dickens* Old Curiosity Shop. Intro, by G. K. Chesterton
174 Dumas’ Black Tulip. Intro, by Ernest Rhys
175 „ Twenty Years After. Intro, by Ernest Rhys
176 Hawthorne’s House of Seven Gables. Intro, by Ernest Rhys
177 Lever’s Harry Lorrequer. Intro, by Lewis Melville
178 Lover’s Handy Andy. Intro, by Ernest Rhys
179 Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. Intro, by Ernest Rhya
180 „ „ Typee. Intro, by Ernest Rhys
181 Trollope’s Framley Parsonage. Intro, by Ernest Rhys
182 „ Warden. Intro, by Ernest Rhys
229 Balzac’s Atheist’s Mass. Preface by George Saintsbury
230 Kingsley's Hs^atia
231 Eliot’s Romola. Intro, by Rudolf Dircks
232 Marryat’s Peter Simple. Intro, by R. Brimley Johnson
Charles Dickens’ Works. With Intro, by G. K. Chesterton ; —
233 Oliver Twist 240 Dombey & Son
234 Great Expectations 241 Martin Chuzzlewit
235 Pickwick Papers 242 David Copperfield
236 Bleak House 290 American Notes
237 Sketches by Boz 291 Child’s History of England
238 Nicholas Nickleby 292 Hard Times
239 Christmas Books 293 Little Dorrit
294 Our Mutual Friend
243 Bronte’s Wutheri^ Heights
244 Oliphaut’s Salem Chapel. Intro, by Sir W. Robertson Nicoll
283 Defoe’s Memoirs of a Cavalier. Intro, by G. A. Aitken
284 Balzac’s Christ in Flanders. Intro, by George Saintsbury
285 „ Chouans. Intro, by George Saintsbury
286 „ The Quest of the Absolute. Intro, by George Saintsbury
287 C. Bronte’s Jane Eyre. Intro, by May Sinclair
288 „ Shirley. Intro, by May Sinclair
289 Defoe’s Journal of the Plague Year. Intro, by G. A. Aitken
295 Goldsmith’s Vicar of Wakefield. Intro, by J."M. D.
296 Kingsley’s Hereward the Wake. Intro, by Ernest Rhys
297 Melville’s Omoo. Intro, by Ernest Rhys
298 Thackeray’s Vanity Fair. Intro, by Hon. WTiitelaw Reid
299 Reade’s Peg Wofiington and Christie Johnstone. Intro, by
304 Blackmore’s Loma Doone {Ernest Rhys
320 Edgar’s Runnymede and Lincoln Fair. Intro, bv L. K. Hughes 324 Manning’s Mary Powell and Deborah’s Diary. Intro, by
Katherine Tynan (Mrs. Hinkson)
326 George Eliot’s Mill on the Floss. Intro. Sir W. Robertson Nicoll
326 Dumas’ Marguerite de Valois (“ La Heine Margot ”)
327 Peacock’s Headlong Hall and Nightmare Abbey
328 “ Long Will.” By Florence Converse
329 Charlotte M. Yonge’s The Dove in the Eagle’s Nest. Intro, by
349 Balzac’s Ot and Racket, and other Stories {Eleanor Hull
360 R. D. Blackmore’s Springhaven
361 Cliarlotte Bronte’s Villette. Intro, by May Sinclair 352 Fanny Burney’s Evelina. Intro, by R, B. Johnson
4
FI CT ION — continued
353 George Eliot’s Felix Holt
354 Erckmann-Chatrian’s The Conscript and Waterloo
355*356 Fielding’s Tom Jones Intro, by George Saintsbury. 2 vols.
357 G. P. R. James’s Richelieu. Intro, by Rudolf Diroks
358 Marrj-at’s Percival Keene. Intro, by E. R.
359 Thackeray's Christmas Books. Intro, by Walter Jerrold
360 Anthony Trollope's Dr. Thome
361 „ „ The Small House at AUington
362 C. M. Yonge’s The Heir of Redclyfie. Intro, by Mrs. MeyneU 363*364 Victor Hugo’s Les Mis6rables. 2 vols. Intro, by S. R. John 391*392 Trollope’s The Last Chronicles of Barset. 2 vols.
393*394 Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo. 2 vols.
4C0 Ainsworth's The Tower of London
410 Edgeworth's Castle Rackrent and The Absentee
414 Dickens* Christmas Stories. Intro, by G. K. Chesterton
416 Kingsley's (Henry) GeofCry HamJyn
417 BrontO's The Professor. Intro, by May Sinclair
418 Curtis's Pnie and I, and Lotus Eating. Intro, by H. W. Mabie
419 Balzac’s Catherine de Medici. Intro, by Prof. Saintsbury
420 Dumas' The Forty -Five 421 Dumas’ <3iicot the Jester
422 Victor Hugo's Notre Dame. Intro, by the late A. C. Swinburne
423 Daudet’s Tartarin of Tarascon and Tartarin on the Alps
424 Hawthorne's The Marble Faun. Intro, the late Sir Leslie Stephen 425-426 Thackeray's Pendennis. Intro, by Walter Jerrold. 2 vols.
427 Galt's Annals of the Parish. Intro, by G. BaiJlie Macdonald
428 Aimard’s The Indian Scout
462 Charles Kingsley's Alton Locke
463 Balzac's Cousin Pons. Intro, by Prof. Saintsbury
464 Wilkie Collins' The Woman in White
465*466 Thackeray's Newcomes. Intro, by Walter Jerrold. 2 vols.
467 Fielding's Joseph Andrews. Intro* by Prof. Saintsbury
468 George Eliot's Scenes of Clerical Life
469 Tolstoi. Master and Main, and other Parables and Tales. New
Translation
501 Dostoieflsky's Oime and Punishment. Intro. Laurence Irving 505 Sheppard's Charles Auchester. Intro, by Jessie M. Middleton 507*508 Thackeray's Virginians. 2 vols. Intro, by Walter Jerrold 509 Victor Hugo’s Toilers of the Sea. Intro, by Ernest Rhys
522 Ainsworth’s Old St. Paul’s. Intro, by W. E. A. Axon
523 Whyte-MelvUle’.s The Gladiators. Intro, by J. Mavrogordato
524 Mrs. GaskeU’s Sylvia’s Lovers. Intro, by Mrs. Ellis Chadwick
525-527 Tolstoi’s War and Peace. 3 vols. [Townsend
528 Turgeniev’s Virgin Soil. A new translatioii by Rochelle S.
629 Scheflel’s Ekkehard : a Tale of the 10th Century
530 Balzac’s The Country Doctor. Intro, by George Saintsbury
631 Hawthorne’s Twice Told Tales
632 Lytton’s Rienzi. Intro, by E. H. Blakeney, M.A.
533 Dostoieffsky’s Prison Life in Siberia. Intro, by Mdm. Stepniak
534 George Sand’s The Devil’s Pool and Francois the Waif
535 Disraeli’s Coningsby. Intro, by Langdon Davies
536 Dickens’ Uncommercial Traveller. Intro. G. K. CJhesterton 688 Two Years before the Mast. By Richard Henry Dana
591 Tolstoi’s Childhood, Boyhood, & Youth. Trans, by C. J. Hogarth
592 The Blithedale Romance. By Nathaniel Hawthorne 593*595 The Vicomte de Bragelonne. By Alexandre Dumas. 3 vols.
696 The Rise and Fall of C6sar Birotteau. By Honord de Balzac
597 Joan Seaton. By Mary Beaumont- Intro, by R. I’. Horton, D. D.
598 Mary Barton. By Mrs. GasKell. Intro, by Thomas Seccomba 599*600 Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister. 2 vols. Intro, by T. Carlyle
611 Yeast. By Charles Kingsley
612*613 Tolstoi’s Anna Karenina. 2 vols. Trans, by Rochelle S. Townsend
614 Dumas* Le Chevalier de Maison Rouge. Intro, by Julius Bramont
615 Cousin Phillis, etc. By Mrs. Gaskell. Intro, by Thos. Seccombe
616 Frankenstein. By Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
617 Sterne’s Tristram Shandy. Intro, by Prof. G. Saintsbury
618 Marryat’s Jacob Faithful
654 Letters from the Underworld and Other Tales. By Fedor
Dostoievsky. Trans, by C. J. Hogarth.
655 The Fall of Constantinople. By J. M. Neale.
656 Balzac’s Lost Illusions. With an Intro, by George Saintsbury
5
FICTION — continued
676 Peter Wilkins; or. The Flying Indians. By Robert Palfcook.
Intro, by A. H. Bullen
677 Turgenier’s Liza. Trans, by W. R. S. Ralston
678 George MacDonald's Sir Gibbie
679 Morier's Hajji Baba
680 North and South. By Mrs. Gaskell
681 Bret Harte's Luck of Roaring Camp and other Tales
682 Ddstoieffsky's The Idiot
683-684 Pamela. By Samuel Richardson. Intro, by G. Saintsbury. 2 vols.
685 The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. By Anne Bronte
686 The Country Parson. By Balzac
687 Thackeray's Roundabout Papers
706-707 The Story of a Peasant. By Erckmann-Chatrian. Translated by C. J. Hogarth. 2 vols.
708 The Subaltern. By G. R. Gleig
709 Windsor Castle. By Harrison Ainsworth
710 Tom Cringle's Log. By Michael Scott
711 Dostoievsky's Poor Folk and The Gambler. Trans. C. J. Hogarth
725 Edwin Drood. With an Introduction by G. K. Chesterton.
Completing the works of Dickens in Everyman's Library
726 Nicolai Gogol's Dead Souls. Translated into English by
C. J. Hogarth
733 Balzac’s Ursule MirouSt. Intro, by George Saintsbury 740 Gogol's Taras Bulba and Other Tales
POETRY AND DRAMA
41 Browning's Poems, 1833-1844. Intro, by Arthur Waugh
42 „ „ 1844-1864
43 Golden Book of Coleridge. Edited by Stopford A. Brooke
44 Tennyson's Poems. Vol. I.. 1830-1856. Intro, by Ernest Rhys
94 Bums' Poems and Songs. Intro, by J. Douglas
95 Sheridan's Plays
96 Palgrave's Golden Treasury. Intro, by Edward Hutton 101 Keats' Poems
148-149 Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry. 2 vols.
150 Procter's Legends and Lyrics
153 Shakespeare's Comedies
154 „ Historical Plays, Poems and Sonnets
155 ,, Tragedies
203 Wordsworth's Shorter Poems. Intro, by Ernest Rhys
257-258 Shelley’s Poetical Works. 2 vols Intro, by A. H. Koszul
307 Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Edited by Principal Burrell, M.A.
308 Dante's Divine Comedy (Cary's Translation). Specially edited
by Edmund Gardner
309 Herbert's Temple. Intro, by Edward Thomas
310 Herrick's Hesperides and Noble Numbers. Intro, by Ernest Rhys
311 Wordsworth's Longer Poems. Note by Editor
334 Matthew Arnold's Poems, 1840-1866, including Thyrsis
335 Goethe's Faust. Parts I. & II. Trans, and Intro. A. Q. Latham
381 Everyman and otlier Interludes, including eight Miracle Plays. Edited by E. R.
382 Longfellow’s Poems. Intro. Katherine Tynan
383 Marlowe's Plays and Poems. Intro, by Edward Thomas
384 Milton's Poems. Intro, by W. H. D. Rouse
415 Goldsmith's Poems and Plays. Intro, by Austin Dobson 443-444 Spenser's Faerie Queene. Intro, by Prof. J. W. Hales. 2 volsu 486-488 Byron's Poetical and Dramatic Works. 3 vols.
489-490 Ben Jonson’s Plays. Intro, by Prof. Schelling. 2 vols.
491-492 Minor Elizabethan Drama. Vol. I. Tragedy. Selected, with Intro, by Prof. Thorndike. Vol. II. Comedy 494 Ibsen. The Doll's House, etc. Trans. R, Farquharson Sharp 602 Browning's The Ring and the Book. Intro, by Chas. W. Hodell 503 The Old Yellow Book. Intro, by Charles W. Hodell 506 The Select Pi ays of Beaumont and Fletcher. Intro, by Prof. Baker, of Harvard University
550-551 Scott’s Poems and Plays. 2 vols. Intro, by Andrew Lang 552 Ibsen's Ghosts and other plays. Trans, by K. Farquharsop Sharp 571 Piers Plowman. By William Laugland 672 A Book of British Ballads. Selected by R. B. Johnson
6
POETRY AND DRAMA — continued
573 Leaves of Grass (I.)» Democratic Vistas, etc. By Walt Whitman.
With an Introduction by Horace B. Traubel
574 A Volume of Heroic Verse. Arranged by Arthur Burrell, M.A. 604 A Volume of Restoration Plays. Intro, by Edmund Gosse
625 Bjfirnson, Three Comedies. Trans, by R. Farquharson Sharp
626 Tennyson’s Poems. Vol. II., 1863-1870
627 Poems and Translations. By Dante Gabriel RossettL Intro.
by Edmund G. Gardner
628 Gray’s Poems and Letters. Intro, by John Drinkwater
629 Shakuntala. An Indian Drama. By Kalidlisa. Trans, by
Prof. W. H. Ryder (son Sharp
659 Ibsen’s Pretenders, Pillars of Society, etc. Trans, by R. Farquhar-
694 Hebbel’s Plays. Trans., with an Intro., by Dr. C. K. Allen
695 The New Golden Treasury. An Anthology of Songs and Lyrics.
Edited by Ernest Rhys i
696 Bjbrnson’s Plays. Vol. II. Trans, by R. Farquharson Sharp. i
“ The Editor,” ** The Bankrupt,” and “ The King ”
715 Emerson’s Poems. Intro, by Professor Bakewell (Yale, U.S.A.)
716 Ibsen’s Brand. Translated by F. E. Garrett
729 Henrik Ibsen’s Lady Inger of Ostraat, Love’s (Domedy, and The League of Youth. Translated into English by R. Farquhar- eon Shai*p
TRAVEL AND TOPOGRAPHY
49 Borrow’a Wild Wales. Intro, by Theodore Watts-Dunton
50 Speke’s Discovery of the Source of the Nile 99 Cook’s Voyages of Discovery
151 Borrow’s The Bible in Spain. Intro, by Edward Thomas
152 Ford’s Gatherings from Spain. Intro, oy Thomas Okey 183-184 Dennis’ (IJities and CJemeteries of Etruria. 2 vols.
205 Travels of Mungo Park. Intro, by Ernest Rhys 264-265, 313-314, 338-339, 388-389. Hakluyt’s Voyages. 8 vols.
272 Giraldus Cambrensis. Itinerary and Description of Wales 306 Marco Polo’s Travels. Intro, by John Masefield 315 Lane’s Modem Egyptians. With many Illustrations 337 Kinglake’s Eothen. Intro, by Harold Spender, M.A.
387 BosweU’s Tour in the Hebrides with Dr. Johnson 390 Lytton’s Pilgrims of the Rhine
446 Bates* Naturalist on the Amazon. With Hlustrations
447 Franklin’s Journey to the Polar Sea. Intro, by Capt. R. F. Scott
499 Lord Dufferin’s Letters from High Latitudes
500 Sir Richard Burton’s First Footsteps in East Africa 610 Anson’s Voyages. Intro, by John Masefield
561 Belt’s The Naturalist in Nicaragua. Intro. Anthony Belt, F.L.S. 589 Stow’s Survey of London. Introduction by H. B. Wheatley 638-639 Cobbett’s Rural Rides. 2 vols. Intro, by Edward Thomas 640 Letters from an American Farmer. By H. St. John OevecoeuP 664 Life in Mexico. By Mme. Calderon de la Barca
697 George Borrow’s Gypsies in Spain. Intro, by Edward Thomas 720 Young’s Travels in France and Italy. Intro, by Thomas Okey
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